


Though our parts are slightly used

by Teatrolley



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, some pining shit and also some dealing with the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-03-28 07:50:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 54,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13899603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teatrolley/pseuds/Teatrolley
Summary: Isak is pining for Jonas, and Even is pining for Mikael. Jonas and Mikael are dating. Isak and Even meetOr: Isak thinks love is a risk, and Even thinks it's tragedy. That's the beginning, anyway





	1. ISAK ⚬ You like him

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Though our parts are slightly used](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15050291) by [sunny_witch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunny_witch/pseuds/sunny_witch)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! i've missed y'all! i'm back! and with something multi-chaptered again
> 
> if this was a friends episode it'd be called "the one where falling in love re-opens old wounds but also maybe heals them a bit" and you can already tell where this is going. we deal with even's sa a bit and isak's parental abandonment issues and all of that delightful stuff. tone's pretty light though
> 
> there are ten chapters, alternating pov, which are written but not edited. i won't have an upload schedule bc i don't want to, but i'm thinking we're trying to average 2-4 days between updates. cool? cool
> 
> also full disclaimer: on top of the evak relationship this has a heavy focus on the friendships between isak & jonas and even & mikael. also if you want to read my idea of how the jokael relationship could play out from canon jonas's pov before diving into this, then i wrote a [fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13603284) about it that you could read
> 
> title is from us by regina spektor. enjoy!!!

Isak is at a party.

Well. It’s more of a get-together, really, hosted by Jonas and Jonas's boyfriend, who's just as new as Jonas liking boys as well as girls is, to him and to everyone else. The get-together slash party, however, is happening because it's serious enough that the two of them want everyone to be introduced. 

It's nice. It could be nice. 

Isak is hiding in the kitchen.

Well, not really hiding. It's just that Mahdi made a joke, and Mikael laughed, and Jonas made these heart-eyes at him that are nearly worse than when he fell in love with Eva, and well–

Isak just kind of needed to catch a little break.

He's been in there for five minutes or so, fiddling with some magnets on the fridge, when a stranger walks in.

He's a real stranger, actually, in that Isak can't recall having ever seen him before. He must be from Mikael's group, then, and one of the ones who Isak has managed to never meet around Sana's place or see on Sana's Facebook, but he must be late, too, since he's there after everyone else. 

When he sees Isak, he smiles.

"Hi," he says, placing a six-pack of beers on the counter, before he stops to brush the snow out of his styled hair that's still falling sometimes this year, even though it's early March. "I'm pretending I'm not late, can you help me?"

What?

"How?" Isak asks, surprised by how forward he is, but the guy just shrugs as he gets his gloves off with the help of his teeth.

"We fell into conversation?" he says.

"Didn't you ring the bell to get in?"

"Spare key." 

Oh.

"You're Even?" Isak asks.

He’s heard a lot about him. Mikael's best friend, who both Jonas and Mikael have told him about, on the few occasions where he's met Mikael already due to Jonas's hard attempt to introduce them to each other. It's nice, in a way, that he wants Isak to like this person that he really likes, and either way it means that he knows who Even is. 

Even, himself, nods.

"That's me," he says, and reaches out his hand for Isak to shake, but he, confusingly, takes it back again before Isak has time to do anything. "Wait, you're Isak?"

"Yeah."

"Let's hug."

"What?"

Isak rarely hugs people, but he's been told by Jonas that this group of boys apparently touch all the time. Maybe it's a common move for Even.

"We're best friends in law."

It's a weird thing so say, but he's grinning as he says it, and okay, maybe Isak could see why people would like this guy. He has an easy charm around him, that is difficult to not be drawn into.

And he's pretty. Isak might be pining for someone else, but he still has eyes.

"Okay," he says, and when Even opens his arms in invitation, he goes.

Even is a good hugger. The kind that actually holds people tight for a few seconds, instead of barely grazing them, and while Isak embraces him back a little loosely, Even uses his palms to rub his back, like it's second nature to him.

"It's good to meet you," he says, after they've pulled apart. He sounds like he means it, too, like he's actually been looking forward to this, and Isak hates that he can't even hate any of these guys, because they're nice, even though they're kind of stealing Jonas away.

"It's good to meet you, too," he says, instead of saying any of that.

"What were you doing out here, anyway? Are you an introvert, or were you moping?"

"I was getting beer."

"Mm-hm."

It's weird that a guy Isak's never met before sees him well enough to tease him like this.

"I _was_ getting a beer. Do you want one?"

"Sure," Even says. "Thank you."

After pulling two bottles out of the fridge, Isak looks around for an opener but can't find it. When Even sees he holds his hands out for the beers, and when Isak hands them over, he goes to the door and opens them both on the door part of the lock.

Show-off, Isak thinks, but likes it.

"Here you go," Even says, handing the beer back over, and Isak takes it and cheers with him, too, clinking their bottles together before they drink.

Then Mikael walks in.

"Yeah, yeah, and you know everything," he says, head towards the hallway that he's coming from and presumably someone in it, before he turns around and sees Even, and his face lights up. "Oh, hello. Finally you came."

"I've been here for ages," Even says, but it's a terrible lie, and Mikael frowns at him immediately.

"Sure," he says, and Even chuckles. After, Mikael opens his arms, and when they hug Even has to lean down a little, because that's how tall he is. It's tight this time, too, Isak notes, but from Mikael's side, too. "Good to see you, though."

"You, too."

They squeeze each other even tighter for a second, before they both pull back.

"Did you meet Even already?" Mikael asks, turning his attention to Isak now, but Isak is still watching Even, who's still watching Mikael, something desperately soft on his face. Oh. "Hm?"

"Uh-" Isak says, focusing back on Mikael. "Uh, yeah, I did."

"He's why you think I'm late, we just fell into conversation."

"You're so convincing," Mikael says, and Even laughs once again. It sounds good, and looks vulnerable, fond eyes in Mikael's direction startlingly similar to the ones Jonas wore before, and Isak's heart aches a little for him. "You haven't met Jonas yet, have you?"

The softness of his voice when he says Jonas's name. Isak can't even hate him for it.

"No, I haven't," Even says, and his voice, on the other hand, has gone a little less warm. "But bring it on."

"I'll go get him."

Mikael does, leaving them again, and it is a little bit funny, so Isak can't help but watch Even with an amused expression on his face. When Even sees it, he frowns.

"What?" he asks.

"You like him."

Even's eyes widen a little, but before he can say anything, Mikael comes into the kitchen again, this time with Jonas in tow, who's smiling and wearing a button-up shirt that used to belong to Eskild and now belongs to Isak but has been in Jonas's closet for a while. This time it's Isak who goes soft.

"Hey, man," Jonas says to him, and then: "And, hey–"

He reaches out his hand to shake Even's, and this time Even doesn't offer a hug.

"Good to finally meet you."

"You, too," Even says. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Same."

"Ev roped Isak into lying for him," Mikael says.

"No-"

"That's-"

They both stop in their tracks to look at each other, and Mikael and Jonas laugh.

"What's this, Is?" Jonas asks, and Isak's chest warms at the nickname. "I thought you were tough?"

"To his credit," Even chimes in, "I am very convincing."

"Well," Isak says, skeptically, and Even and Mikael both laugh

"I knew you would like each other," Mikael says. Even's expression goes soft again, and Jonas throws his arm around Mikael's shoulders, more of a caretaker with him than he's ever been with anyone, because apparently Mikael makes him soft, too. Then, to Jonas: "Success."

"Mm." It's a private, tender noise. "Back to the party?"

Mikael nods.

"We'll go back to the party, guys," Jonas says, in a normal voice for them.

"Okay."

It's Even who says it, and with a nod in both of their directions, they both leave the kitchen again.

"You can talk," he goes on, to Isak, as soon as the two of them are out of ear-shot.

"What?"

"I like him? You like him."

Isak doesn't know if he should be worried that it's that obvious, but on the other hand maybe Even only realises because he's in the same boat. Really, it's embarrassingly cliché. Both of them in love with their best friends, who in turn are in love with each other.

In the end, Isak just shrugs.

"We both like him, I guess," he says. "Just not the same him."

Even nods, then shrugs, then holds his beer-bottle up again.

"Cheers to that?" he asks, and Isak nods, too.

"I guess," he says. "Cheers to that."

*

The next day he's doing a shift at the library where he works, rolling the cart of returned books around and putting them back on their shelves. Eva walks next to him.

"I'm hung-over," she says, pinching the bridge of her nose where a headache is probably forming, and she looks it, too, wearing the hoodie and the layers she always wears when she doesn't want to face the world.

"You're always hung-over," Isak says.

"Rude," she says, and he smiles. "I'm here, aren't I? I'm out of bed, hanging out with you."

"You are," he agrees. "Why?"

When she slaps his chest, he snorts.

"Don’t be a dick," she says, and he holds up his hands in surrender. For a while they keep walking, then: "It was fun last night, yeah?" 

"Sure," Isak says. 

"Do you think Jonas is happy?" 

It's weird, how much it always sits unspoken between them. The guy she always went to him to talk about, when they were younger, and the guy they’re both still hung up on.

Not that he’s sure she actually knows. She was pretty bad at noticing before. 

"Like, Mikael makes him happy, right?"

"I think so, yeah," Isak says, not too thrilled to have to talk about it. "Why would I know more than you? You were there, too, weren't you?"

"Yeah, but you've hung out with them more. You're his best friend."

It aches. It shouldn't ache, because it's true, and he should be happy that it is. That he gets to have Jonas in his life, and to have him close, and to be not just a friend, but the best one. The one he's the closest to.

It still aches, just a little.

"Hm," he says, non-committedly.

"But," she powers through, and he almost rolls his eyes. "Do you think he's happier? Than before, I mean?"

Than with her, she probably, actually means.

Isak is caught between feeling bad for her and contemplating how she always manages to be completely oblivious to him when it comes to the topic of Jonas. It's like she just doesn't notice that it's a topic he doesn't like talking about, even though he thinks that, by now, he's pretty bad at hiding the way he shuts down whenever it's brought up. 

Maybe she just misdiagnoses that as meaning something else. 

"Eva," he says, concerned and annoyed at the same time. "I don't think it's really about you."

"That's not–"

"If you're asking me because you care about him, then I don't know if he's happier but he does seem happy." He says that to himself a lot. "If you're asking me because you're in love with him still-"

"I'm not."

He sighs, and fixes her with a look.

"I'm not," she repeats.

"Okay." He shrugs. "You're not."

"Can we talk about something else?"

"Please," he says. "What?"

"Isn't it weird that he's Sana's brother's friend?" Isak almost sighs. So it's not much different, then. "Like, it's a coincidence. That's weird, right? Like we were meant to know that group."

"Like fate?" Isak asks, with his brows raised, but he's glad for the chance to change the topic.

"Maybe," she says, and then she giggles, like she just thought of something funny. "It's like the universe saying that we have to stop dating across our two groups, and expand our dating pool a little."

Isak chuckles, too.

"It's true," she goes on. "Sana is seeing Yousef, and Jonas is seeing Mikael. Right when we were about to run out of new ways to get together, these six new dating prospects arrived."

"For you, maybe."

"Can you imagine if I dated Adam, though? Adam and Eva? How perfect is that?" she asks. "Also what do you mean by _for you_?" So she noticed. "They can't all be straight."

"Statically, they can."

"Yeah, but Eskild always says that gay people find each other subconsciously, and barely anyone we know is straight. Mahdi, maybe, but I'm not even sure about that."

"It's not our place to speculate."

She rolls her eyes.

"Whatever. All I'm saying is that you and Mutta would be cute together."

"You didn't say that."

"You and Even?" She tilts her head, assessing him. "I can't see with you Elias, really."

"Do you have to set me up right now? I'm at work."

She waves her hand, as if to wave the complaint away.

"Well, time waits for no man," she says. "Actually, let's go back to the Even thing. He's the only one you wouldn't have to lean down to kiss."

"Eva." When she hears his exasperation, she smiles. "Please. Can't you help me with the books instead?"

"Okay, okay," she says, and when she reaches out to smooth out his shirt, he lets her. "Let me do your job for you."

He snorts, and she smiles about it, to him, before she finds a new book, reads the spine of it, and puts it back on the right shelf.

"Satisfied, lazy boy?" she asks.

He rolls his eyes, but smiles, too.

"Yeah," she says. "Satisfied."

*

That evening, when he comes home to kollektivet, he's exhausted.

Instead of talking to anyone, he makes a beeline for his own room, still the one in the hallway, closes the door firmly behind him, and throws himself on his bed.

It's a Saturday, he was hung-over, too, and he kind of just wants to nap.

Well. Actually, most of what Eva said was stupid, but it still makes him think of how the rest of the party went. It was her, their boys, and Mikael's boys, and Isak found himself sitting close to Even quite a lot throughout the night, and found himself laughing at a lot of the things he said, too.

Still lying on his bed, then, he reaches into his back pocket, and fishes out his phone. After a moment of hesitation, he presses on the Facebook app.

He's not friends with any of them yet, and he doesn't know anyone but Elias's last names, but he goes onto Jonas's profile, with the new, pretty, black and white profile picture that Mikael took, finds Mikael in his friend-list, and goes into the list of Mikael's friends, searching for Even.

After a second, he shows up: _Even Bech Næsheim._

Isak clicks on it.

It's locked down completely, almost every bit of it private, but Isak can still see a few things. It's a new profile, made only a year and a half ago, when Even must have started uni, if he's following along with Mikael, anyway. They're two years older, but Mikael, at least, took a gap year, where the rest of them moved straight on, so he's only two semesters ahead.

It's strange. Isak kind of wants to know what happened.

The only other information that he can really gather is Even's profile and banner picture. The first one is of him, looking straight in the camera, looking a model kind of cool. The second one, however, is of him with the boys, Mikael included, all of them with their arms around each other, and in that one he's grinning widely.

Isak smiles just looking at it.

After he's looked through his Facebook he looks for him on Instagram, too, finding his profile by looking through the photos that Mikael is tagged in. Here he's smiling, too, and cool, and there are a lot of pictures of the five boys. Often it's all of them together, or it's Mikael alone, doing something stupid, like pulling the hoodie in tight around his face.

There's some, too, that he's tagged the UiO film club on, and Isak supposes that means that he hangs out there sometimes. There are a few movie screenshots, too, one that Isak recognises as being from Romeo + Juliet, and that's fascinating, then. He must be a film student, just like Mikael.

Further down his feed, a few years back in time, there's a picture of a girl, too, with just a heart underneath it. She must be his ex-girlfriend, or something similar to that. When Isak goes onto her profile and scrolls back in time there, as well, he finds more pictures of Even, and in one of them he's sitting shirtless in a bed, duvet pooling around his waist, eating toast and grinning at the camera.

Isak almost takes a screenshot of it.

He wishes he could see more. He considers sending him a friend-request on Facebook, or following him on Insta, and his thumb hovers over the button, but he hesitates, before he presses home instead.

He doesn't know what stops him, but something definitely does. He's just not ready yet.

*

On Monday, between his 10-12 seminar and his 13-15 lecture, he eats lunch in the UiO campus cafeteria with the boys.

"Hey," Magnus says, a little absentmindedly, when Isak joins him and Mahdi, who are looking through something on Mahdi's phone that they were chatting about before he arrived. "Good weekend?"

"The usual."

"Did you hear Frank Ocean released a new song?"

"Mm."

"It's all he's been listening to," Mahdi says, sounding a little exasperated, and Isak grins. "Like, constantly."

"What?"

It's Jonas, who's just entered from outside, it seems, still wearing a coat, and who goes around their circle, slapping their hands hello as he sits down on a chair next to Isak, close enough that their their shoulders touch.

"Frank Ocean's new song," Mahdi says.

"Oh, it's so good."

"I know," Magnus says. "I've been listening to it all weekend."

"He really has."

Jonas and Isak both snort, and Jonas turns to him, alone, and rolls his eyes about them.

"Well," he says, then. "Sounds like a great time. Did the rest of you have a good weekend, too?"

"Yeah," Mahdi says. "Mikael was awesome on Friday, bro."

Jonas eyes go soft at just the mention of his name, and Isak watches it with that same familiar ache in his chest. He's never been like this before, and Isak thinks there must be something special about Mikael, to bring this out in him. Maybe it's his openness, that's making Jonas open, too. 

In any case Jonas smiles, small and warm and almost private, like it's meant for Mikael although he's not even here.

"He was great," Magnus joins in, and Jonas nods at the both of them. "I liked the rest of them, too. Weird hanging out with Sana's brother without her, though."

It's true, it was. Saturday morning Sana sent him two texts: a moody smiley and _Elias is talking about you and the boys. You're inescapable._

It had made him laugh, and when he'd texted her back it had been a heart, after which she'd written _remember to do the reading for Monday_ and _we have to do group work._

All in all, then, a perfectly normal exchange between them.

"Sana hates it," he says, now, and Jonas turns to him and raises his brows.

"Really?"

"She wants to escape Isak," Magnus says. "But she can't. Wouldn't we all hate that?"

"Ha-ha," Isak says. 

"Kidding."

"Hm. You're just upset that I'm a much more charming person than you. I've got game, and everything."

"Oh, you've got what? I'm sorry? Can you repeat that?" When Isak flips him off, Magnus laughs. "Because if I remember correctly, you might be good at flirting but you're also the only one who's not at all dating anyone."

"What does that have to do with my game?" Isak asks. "All that means, is that I don't let anyone date me."

"Right."

"What?"

"Alright," Mahdi says. "I think we can all agree that hearing about Isak's aversion to dating is getting boring at this point, so let's just change the subject."

"Yeah," Jonas says. "Is, you still haven't answered my question of whether or not you had a good weekend?"

Jonas always does this. Somehow, with him, he always notices, even when they're in a group, and he always checks in with him in particular.

It would be sweet. It would be really sweet. If not for the fact that it makes getting over him and stopping his pining that much harder.

"Yes," he says, instead of saying any of that. "I hung out with Eva."

"Oh, nice. Was she hungover?"

"Yeah."

They both snort.

"Great. Mikael really likes you, by the way."

Isak is jealous. He's pretending he's not, and trying not to be, but he really kind of is.

"Well, I am great," he says.

"True." Sometimes he wishes that Jonas would just shut the fuck up. "Anyway-"

Before Jonas can finish what he was going to say, his phone rings with a prayer reminder from the app that he downloaded a month or so ago, and he does shut up, then, but he does it because of this distinct reminder of how much Jonas has committed himself to someone else.

Isak really, really needs to get his shit together and get over this.

On the other side of the table, both Mahdi and Magnus groan.

"What?" Jonas asks, fishing out his phone out of his pocket, and shutting off the notification so his phone shuts up, too. "I need to know these kinds of things now."

"Maybe," Mahdi says. "But can't you know them on _mute_?"

It's funny. Funny enough that Jonas snorts and then, a second later, funny enough that the rest of them laugh along, too.

Jonas looks good when he laughs, and he's so happy right now. Mikael makes him happy, and being with Mikael makes him happy.

Isak shuts up.

*

In the campus yard, on the way to their afternoon lectures, they run into Mikael and Even.

Of course they do. It's a large campus, and Isak never fucking runs into anyone, even though he knows a bunch of people around the place who, conceivably, he could run into, but they run into them. Because of course that's what they do.

"Speak of the devil," Magnus says, when he sees them first, and when Jonas's catches sight of them his expression turns that new sort of soft once again. "Hey, guys."

"Hey," Even says, and Mikael:

"Hi."

"Going to a lecture?" Magnus asks.

"Yeah."

"Hi," Jonas says, but in a quiet voice, a soft voice, and when Isak looks, he's gone up to Mikael so they're standing close, and has intertwined their fingers. "Can I?"

Mikael nods.

"Mm-hm."

Jonas leans in, then, tilts his head, and kisses him. It looks like they're both smiling into it, their hands hanging intertwined by their sides, and when they pull apart Jonas uses the grasp to pull Mikael back in and kiss him again. Mikael chuckles softly about it.

Isak looks away.

When he does, he finds Even watching him, and when their eyes meet Even raises his brows, looking amused. Isak rolls his eyes, but that just makes Even smile even more, almost chuckling. 

Like he can talk. 

But then Even shrugs, too, sort of resigned, like he thinks this is just as shitty as Isak thinks it is, and Isak finds himself smiling, just a tiny, tiny bit. There's something about the solidarity.

"You're happy today," Sana says, when he dumps down besides her in the lecture hall, five or so minutes later. "Did you sleep well, for once?"

"Not really," he says. "Had a good lunch."

"Food solves everything."

"Hm."

"Did you do the reading, like I told you to?"

"Sana," he says, pulling his books and his laptop out. "Sana, Sana, Sana. I didn't just do the reading, I took notes for the reading, and for today's case-study, too. Who's the master of studying now?"

"Still me."

"Hm." He says it in a sceptical tone, and he's teasing her, tilting his head, but it must work because she's almost smiling. "I think you'll find that you're wrong."

"We'll see," she says, and he raises his brows like he's taking the challenge.

"Alright," he says. "We'll see."

*

That afternoon he finds the three of them, Jonas, Mikael and Even, outside of campus, chatting to each other.

"Hey," Jonas calls to him, waving him over, and okay, then. It seems that Isak won't get out of this one. "Good lecture?"

"Alright."

"We were going to hang out, if you want to join?"

Isak raises his brows at him, glancing between him and Mikael.

"Third-wheeling?"

Mikael and Even both snort.

"Ev will be there, too," Mikael says.

"So we'll both be third-wheeling," Even adds.

Isak sighs. It's just so difficult to be with them when they're around each other, too. Not that they intentionally shut him out, for a couple they're actually okay to hang out with, but Isak is too jealous and too busy pining to be a good friend about it and just get over himself. 

"I kind of have some reading to do," he says, trying to get out of it.

"You don't," Jonas says, always seeing right through him, and Isak fixes him with a look.

"Well, it's polite to let someone lie to you when they're trying to turn you down easy."

Even laughs, and Jonas smiles, too.

"Alright, man. Just thought I'd ask."

"We could do something," Even says, turning to face Isak, now.

"Are you ditching us?" Mikael asks.

"You're a couple." Even looks back to them. "I imagine you can come up with things to do that do not involve me. Probably even things that you can only do when I'm not there."

Mikael blushes, and Jonas laughs. Even turns back to Isak.

"Do you want to?"

"What are we going to do?"

Even shrugs.

"Whatever," he says. "I have some stuff back in my room?"

"Jay?" He nods. "Alright."

"You're in?" This time it's Isak who nods. "Great."

Mikael scoffs.

"Excuse me," he says. "So that's it, huh? Years of friendship and you're abandoning me over jay?"

"Go make out with your boyfriend somewhere private," Even says, waving a hand, as if to make him go away. "Bye. Isak and I will have fun without you."

"I'm offended."

"Love you, too. Say hi to the boys when you get home."

Before Mikael can say anything, Even has placed his hand in-between Isak's shoulder-blades, and is pushing him carefully towards the tram stop, until Isak, chuckling, starts moving on his own.

"Smooth," he says, and Even chuckles, too, a sound that seems surprisingly delighted.

"Anything not to third-wheel," he says. "And I really do have some good stuff. You still coming?"

It's a chance to back out. Isak doesn't know him at all, and maybe he should back out, because maybe it's weird hanging out with your best friend's boyfriend's best friend, when you're both pining for the two parts of another couple. 

But Isak researched him online just a few days ago, and Isak actually kind of wants to hang out with him. So:

"Sure," he says. "I'm still coming."

*

Turns out that Even lives with roommates, too.

He explains the living situation to Isak, while they're sitting together on the tram. There are six of them, and they divided up to three and three and when they decided to move out and move in together. Even with Mutta and Adam, and Mikael with Sana's brother and Sana's boyfriend.

It's great, Isak thinks. It means she can't get annoyed with him for infiltrating her life even more.

When they walk in through the front door Even calls out, asking if anyone is home, and when no-one answers he smiles and gestures with a nod of his head for Isak to join him down the hallway.

His room screams of him.

There's a record player, and a guitar, and movie posters on the walls. There are things to make movies with, cameras and tripods and all sorts of other gadgets that Isak doesn't know the names of. 

There's his bed, corner of his room under the window, and actual curtains around that, and there's a bookcase full of books and trinkets and pictures of other people. Some of the boys and one of him, younger, with two adults who must be his parents. 

There's a desk, pens, pencils, notebooks, sketchbook, closed and Isak wants to open it.

He used to have stuff, when he still lived with his parents, ages and ages ago. Had posters, and books, and all kinds of other clutter that gave the room personality but was difficult to move when he left and too expensive to buy again.

What Even's room really screams of, then, is him having a decent family life.

"You're thinking," Even says.

"You like movies," Isak says, no longer as seamless at lying as he used to be, but still good at avoiding sharing anything about the thoughts that he was actually just having. Instead, he gestures with a hand to the posters hanging over Even's bed. "Romeo + Juliet?"

"A classic," Even says, and Isak, having only seen it once but obviously knowing of the play, shrugs. "I volunteer at the uni film club sometimes."

Biting his lip, Isak tries not to smile about the fact that he already knows, because that'd be an embarrassing thing to have to reveal. _Hey, stranger. Do you know that I stalked you the other day?_

"Oh?" he says, instead.

"And I do film. With Mikael, as you probably know."

"I do."

"Hm." Even turns around from where he was rummaging through one of his desk drawers, holding up a joint. "Found it."

They end up on his bed, under the window that Even opens even though it's cold, _to give the smoke an outside to waft into_. 

Isak has his head against Even's headboard, and Even has his on a small mountain of pillows at the end of the bed, so their eyes can meet and their legs do meet, lying side by side in the middle of the bed.

Isak's eyes follow him every time he moves.

"It's actually really fun right now," Even says, about the film course. "We're doing some technical classes and stuff. It's nice to read a little less."

"Too busy pining to read?"

Even snorts, shaking his head, and Isak's eyes follow that, too, as he smiles. When Even sits up to hand the blunt over to him, and he sits up to accept it, their fingertips brush.

"Yeah," Even says, though, sounding amused. "That's probably, actually true. You must be, too?"

"I'm a great multitasker."

Even laughs.

"Funny," he says. And: "He's a cool guy, though, I get it. Jonas."

He says it, slowly, like he's testing it out. Figuring out where to place it, where it fits between them and where it fits for him. It's exactly the way Isak said Mikael's name, the first time he said it out loud, after Jonas had told him about him.

"Jonas," he repeats, trying to emulate the tone Even said it with.

"What?"

"You hate him."

"Shut up," Even says, but with a chuckle, too. "You must hate Mikael."

"He's a cool guy."

This time they both chuckle, looking at each other and shaking their heads.

It's nice. Isak usually keeps all of this hidden, and it's tiring, sometimes, to carry it all inside. It's nice to get to share it with someone who he knows won't judge, and couldn't judge, either, because he's experiencing the same thing. It makes Isak realize how much weight it is to go around carrying it in silence.

For a while they just smoke, passing the blunt back and forth between them until it's just a stub, which Even turns out on the brick wall outside of his window. He doesn't throw it out, though, but places it in his windowsill instead, saying it's for the sake of the environment. 

If him and Jonas actually talked, Isak figures they would like each other, too.

Isak likes him a little, or at least he's comfortable enough around him that he stays for the entire afternoon, even after the blunt is finished. Stays until darkness has fallen outside. 

"What are you so happy about today?" Eskild asks him when he comes home that evening, finding him in the kitchen where he was buttering a piece of bread and smiling to himself. "Are good things happening to baby Jesus for once?"

"I was just thinking about a meme," Isak says.

"I don't believe you."

Instead of replying Isak turns around to meet his eye and shrug, before he collects his food and takes it with him when he pushes past Eskild on his way to the hallway.

"You're not going to tell me?" Eskild calls after him. "Me? Your guru?"

"Night, Eskild," Isak calls back. "Sleep well."

Before Eskild has time to call anything else after him, he closes the door to him room behind himself and drops himself on his bed, on his back.

While he eats he thinks, and then, just like last time, he fishes his phone out of his back-pocket, goes onto Even's Facebook, lets his thumb hover over the friend-request button, and then:

Presses it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo! what did you think? are you excited for this? i'm excited for this. tell me your thoughts in the comments?
> 
> as already mentioned this is alternating pov so the next chapter will be from even’s pov and so on and so on


	2. EVEN ⚬ Nothing. Just Isak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! good saturday? i hope good saturday. and hope you're ready to read some even pov, too. enjoy!

Even smiles the whole day, while Isak is there.

He can't quite explain it, he just knows that he has a good time. Isak's fun to be around, and he's kind to him, and he observes a lot of things. Whenever Even's caught sight of him when he didn't know he was being watched, he's been looking at things like he's studying them. 

Even's room. Jonas and Mikael. Even himself.

"What's up with you smoking behind a closed bedroom door all afternoon?" Adam asks him, arm slung around his shoulders, while they're standing in the kitchen that night, watching Mutta trying to make them some tea. "I heard chatting, too. New prospect?"

"It's a very teenage move," Mutta says. " _Let's just hang out in here, in our own little world._ "

"Wait," Adam says. "Did you finally get Sonja to smoke? Was it her?"

"Oh, can you imagine if it was her?" Mutta says, turning around to face them with excitement now. "All that drama, and then she likes it."

"It was Isak," Even says. "From Friday. But I was tempted to see where this speculation would go."

"Isak," Adam repeats, raising his brows at Mutta who grins, the two of them apparently not even needing Even to be here. "So you're trying to get back at Mikael by bonding with his boyfriend's best friend?"

"I would never try to get back at Mikael."

Adam sighs, and Mutta shakes his head over the teapot.

"You're too good," Adam says. "All these Muslim values and you never pray, and you don't even have to work for it."

"Is that a grudge I'm hearing in your voice?"

"My mum once told me to be more like you, because you're such a fucking mum-charmer. I got up at five thirty this morning to pray, and the boy who gets to sleep in is still better? What's up with that?"

Laughing, Even rubs Adam's back.

"I'm sorry," he says, and Adam raises his brows.

"Sorry enough to tell me more about Isak?"

"Nope."

Adam sighs, pulling away from him, and Even chuckles again.

For the rest of the evening, he keeps smiling, too.

*

Isak sends him a friend-request on Facebook.

He doesn't see it until the next morning, where he's standing outside their lecture building, waiting for Mikael to arrive for their 10am so they can sit together.

Generally he keeps his account private, and is only friends on there with the people he feels he could trust if he had another Facebook meltdown. It's wisest, probably, considering what happened to it at Bakka, although he's also counting on being more stable now.

Isak, though. Even hardly knows him at all, but he supposes he can't avoid that group now that Mikael's introduced them, but more than that he already feels like he could trust a lot of things with Isak. Like he's that kind of loyal person.

He accepts.

"What are you smiling at?" Mikael calls to him when he arrives, bouncing down the stairs that lead to the sunken building entrance, two cups of take-away coffee in hand. He's grinning, because he's always grinning, and Even feels that warm, familiar fondness go through his stomach like it always does. "Hey."

Once Mikael is close enough he opens his arms, careful with the coffee, and Even leans in to hug him hello, close enough and long enough that he catches a waft of Mikael's warm scent.

"Brought you coffee," Mikael says. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," Even says. "Isak."

"Oh, yeah." Mikael hands one of the cups over, which Even takes, trying not to grow too fond of him, because he really has to get over this. When Mikael gestures towards the entrance to their building, too, they head in and towards their lecture hall. "Did you have fun yesterday? Despite literally bailing on us."

"Yeah," Even says. "He's nice."

"I knew you would think that."

He did. Actually, Mikael insisted on it for a long time, after he first started hanging out with Jonas, and started talking about Jonas a lot, too.

Even can't even really be sad. They look too good together for that, and Mikael is too happy. Not just joyful, like he's always been, but genuinely happy in the deep sense. So:

"You did do that," he says, while they're walking up the stairs of the lecture hall, trying to find seats. "Guess you really do know me, huh?"

"Exactly," Mikael says. "Best friend points."

"One point," Even says. "Don't get ahead of yourself."

"Coffee," Mikael says, holding up his cup and nodding towards Even's, too. "One more point, so two."

"Sit here," Even says, pointing to two seats. "And okay. Two points."

Mikael sits.

"Did you two have fun?" Even goes on. "Despite the fact that I wasn't there?"

"Mm-hm," Mikael says, tell-tale blush and aversion of his gaze telling the rest of the story for him. "I got some script-writing done when I got home."

"Oh, really? You were inspired?"

"Shut up," Mikael says, still not meeting his gaze, and Even laughs. It's okay that it's about Jonas. He just likes to get to tease him. "Stop it."

"I didn't say anything."

"Yes, you did." They're both smiling. "Listen: I'm embarrassingly fond of him and we did stuff. Let's move on."

Even chuckles again.

In a way, actually, he's happy that it's this easy now, for Mikael to admit that he likes a boy. There was a moment, back in the beginning, where he was sad and scared and went to Even, asking him about how he got over reading the Quran passages that aren't kind to people like them.

Even's never been religious, so he didn't have a lot to say, but it meant a lot to him, still, that Mikael felt like he could ask. That, despite everything that happened with them, Mikael still wanted to share it with him.

There's a lot of guilt between them, and a lot of care, but right now there's also Mikael's joy, which has made everything a little easier, so Even might be jealous, but he's happy for him, too. Happy that he gets to be happy for him.

"Okay," he says. "Moving on."

*

When he comes home that afternoon, he throws himself onto his bed and fishes his phone out of his back pocket, before he clicks onto Isak's Facebook profile.

He is, apparently, a fucking nerd.

It's all shared articles about biology stuff that Even doesn't really understand, and sometimes it's articles about physics, too, and cosmology. Stuff about the universe. 

It strikes Even how professional it looks, like it's already a part of his resume.

His Instagram, though. Even finds it through Jonas's profile, which he was already following, and here his real personality shines through. There are pictures of the boys, always weird angles, and captions that are actually desperately funny.

A little down the feed there's a picture of him with an older guy, all dressed up in rainbow gear and smiling, while Isak is glancing at the camera and looking unimpressed. Underneath it, though, it says _happy pride_ , and Even finds this part of him so fascinating. The grumpiness mixed with sincerity, too.

Further down there's a picture of him and Sana where he's smiling, and she's frowning at him, the positions from before turned around, and underneath it: _she thinks I'm great._

Even can't help but smile at his phone again. Isak is funny in this wonderfully dry way.

Before Even can stop himself, he's scrolled back up and pressed follow. Then he goes back to Facebook to message him:

"So Facebook and Insta are done now. Do you have other places I can stalk you?"

In his experience being honest but making it a little funny is always a good way to charm.

It only takes a few seconds before the dancing bubbles that signal that Isak is writing appear, and only a few seconds more before he's replied:

"LinkedIn?"

Even likes that he plays along.

"Your Facebook is actually very employer-friendly," he writes. "It's also incredibly nerdy."

"Says the obsessively movie-loving guy."

This time Even actually chuckles to himself.

"I do feel like most people would agree that movies are cooler than enzymes, though," he writes.

"Yes," Isak writes back. "Idiots."

Even laughs. It's out loud again, and he actually likes Isak. Didn't expect to like him at all, what with his jealousy of Jonas and Isak being his friend, but the moment they actually met, in that kitchen, he felt an inexplicable sense of intrigue. The same one he felt when he first met Mikael. The one that says, _this guy could be cool. I want to get to know him._

There's an ease to it, actually. Natural chemistry, maybe, which he supposes Isak would know about, biology and all.

Suddenly there's a knock on his doorframe, and when Even glances up it's Mutta who's standing there leaning against it, the door already open because Even doesn't really close it unless he has someone over. There's a towel hanging around his neck.

"Are you watching something funny?" he asks. "Because then pause it, I wanna join."

"No, I'm not watching anything, I'm just texting Isak."

"Oh." There's a delight to the way he says it. "Seems like we should have paid more attention to him on Friday."

Even shrugs, pretending not to catch the insinuation.

"That group is so intertwined with ours now," he says. "You'll probably get another chance."

"Okay." He still sounds a little too happy. "Anyway, I was going to take a long bath. Do you need anything first?"

"No, go ahead."

"Alright," Mutta says, and nods. Then: "Happy you're happy, man." 

Even nods, and Mutta smiles. When he walks away, there's a new text in Even's phone.

It makes him laugh again.

*

A few days later, afternoon, Sonja comes over to hang out with him.

They still see each other from time to time. He never expected they would, because by the end of their relationship they resented each other, but somehow everything felt so much lighter after they'd stopped dating. Easier, in a way, because the expectations had left, and easier, too, because the first time they'd felt intimate in ages was the day they broke up. 

They end up lying together on his bed.

"Can you open the window?" she asks. "I mean did you just smoke, or do you never air your room out?"

"I smoked a few days ago."

"You're such a boy," she says. "How difficult is it to open a window while you shower or something?"

"I don't know, mum," he says, but he still sits up to open the window over his bed, letting in the cool March air, because it's more teasing now, from her side, than it was when they were together. "Satisfied?"

"Yes," she says.

"Are you going to comment on the fact that I smoked, too?"

He’s making a joke, he thinks, but she doesn’t seem to find it funny. At least she rolls her eyes, and not in a fond way.

"I only ever did that out of worry, you know. Your doctors said–"

"Oh my God–"

"They said–"

"Yes, I know what they said." 

So it's not all fine. They still have a tendency to end up in this exact rut, staring at each other with their arms crossed in front of their chests, childishly petty, because this is a conflict they apparently can't reconcile. She insists that she's worrying out of care. He insists that she's making him feel like he's on a perpetual suicide watch with no freedom left to speak of.

"Do you really want to have that conversation again?"

"No, not really," she says.

"Okay."

"Okay." A pause, and then: "You’re so annoyed with me." 

"Only ninety percent of the time," he says, once again a joke, but this time she smiles.

"Shut up," she says, but fondly, this time, before she reaches out, like she still does sometimes, and brushes her fingers through his hair.

It worked for a while, when they first started out, the way it was always like that: her reaching out to touch his hair, constantly caring for him. It didn’t become annoying before he started feeling guilty, and she started being so worried the care came with limitations and monitoring, too. 

"Are you still into Mikael?" she asks, and it’s so weird, this not-quite-exes, not-quite-friends, definitely-not-lovers-but-still-sort-of-intimate thing they’ve got going on. It’s so hard to navigate. 

He is though, so he nods. He thinks she likes knowing that they didn’t break apart for nothing.

She hums.

"That Jonas guy and him, though," she says. "I guess you were almost right to kiss him."

"I definitely wasn’t right to kiss him."

"What, because you didn’t ask? I didn't ask you," she says, and technically that’s true, but it’s different when you’re a Muslim guy, deep in the closet, and the person who’s kissing you is your best friend. 

He shrugs. 

It’s not just that he didn’t ask. It was everything else surrounding it, too.

"Aren’t you literally the exact person who’s supposed to be mad that I kissed him, too?" he asks, because that’s one of the reasons, but probably the least bad one, even if you’re her. 

She shrugs, and it makes sense. Compared to everything else, the pills, the apathy, the anger, he’s sure the kiss is pretty inconsequential. 

"You’re sorry,” she says. “We’re friends."

That’s probably what they both cling to. He’s sorry. They’re friends. They used to be in love, and as long as neither of them are dating anyone else, the residue of intimacy is dificult to let go of. 

"I am sorry," he says, and she nods. When she keeps touching his hair, too, and pulls him in closer, him lying on her shoulder and her holding him, he lets her. 

It’s familiar. Even though it’s been years, they’ve still not let that go. 

Maybe they’re too stuck in the past.

When Sonja eventually leaves, she does it around the same time that everyone's phones ring for prayer. While Adam and Mutta perform wudu, Even and Sonja say goodbye in the hallway, and as they listen to the ritual being carried out, she touches his wrist, right where the pulse point is.

He gets it. He does.

When she leaves, he kisses her cheek.

He's always liked the fact that the rest of them believe in something, though. He doesn't, but it calms him, this, being home for Maghrib and bearing witness to the way the others meet around the sink, performing the ritual cleansing, before they go into their rooms to be alone while they pray, but do it loud enough that Even can hear it. 

One time, when they were all younger, and before trauma entered their lives, Mikael let him stay in his bedroom while he prayed. He took Even through the whole thing, how to perform wudu, and what to say as you pray, before he did it, too, soft, almost brown-skinned palms pressed into the prayer mat, and forehead meeting it delicately.

Afterwards he was as calm as Even had ever seen him, and has ever seen him since, and Even had felt calm, too, watching Mikael's smile, pleased and at peace. 

It was the peace, really, that Even got so stuck on. He doesn't have anything like that, that can make him feel that kind of calm, that stretched-out moment of silence, but he longs for it, desperately. Something to give him a moment of relief.

While the others pray, then, Even goes to the kitchen to make them all cups of tea, and when they come out, peaceful, peaceful, he hands them over with a small smile.

"Thank you," Mutta says. "Good day?"

"Yeah. Good day."

*

On Saturday, they're all at the gym.

It's not really Even's scene, he can say that much. It's dumb because it's probably true that exercising your body has a positive effect on your mind, but that doesn't change the fact that whenever Even joins, which is only occasionally, it's with a rather noncommittal attitude.

That afternoon he's sitting on the bench of one of the bench-press machines, while the rest of the boys and Jonas lift weights.

Oh, yeah. Jonas is there, too.

Actually he's sitting in front of Mikael, holding his legs down as he does sit-ups, but after Mikael finishes and lies back on the mattress, he keeps touching his legs.

First just his legs, then his knees, then his thighs, which is where he stops, but it's still high enough that Even, who was watching them, averts his eyes quickly to meet Mutta's across the room, both of them pressing their lips together, trying not to smile about it.

It's the same way the rest of them react when they're out and suddenly Adam is kissing someone. When they catch the gaze of the other boys, Mutta nods towards the scene, and everyone else smiles about it, too. Elias clears his throat.

"Bro," he says, to Yousef, as Jonas's hands ride down a little. "Are you trying to become a bodybuilder, or what's with the bench-press?"

"He's trying to look good for Sana," Adam says.

"It's true."

"Don't talk about my sister like that."

Everyone, Mikael and Jonas, too, laughs.

"Calm down," Mutta says, discarding his own weights and going to the bench-press where Even is sitting, joining him on it, so Even can lean on his shoulders from behind, which he does. "Are we done soon, or what? I want fries."

"What's the point of the gym if you don't eat healthy after?" Elias asks. 

"It's social. Even and I are just here to hang out."

"You two," Mikael says, from the floor. "You're the slackers of this group."

"Rude."

"Yeah, rude," Mutta copies. "Even and I don't appreciate that tone."

"You and Even are a unit, now?"

"Yeah."

Mikael rolls his eyes, but not until he's caught Even's gaze, and Even still feels warm in his chest about the fact that it's actually the two of them who are the unit. That it's the two of them who share a look, and roll their eyes together.

When Mikael stops rolling his eyes, Jonas's palms are on his thighs again.

Oh, yeah. It's still so new that Even re-remembers sometimes: maybe, more than being a unit, they were one in the past.

He looks away.

*

Now that him and Isak have met, it seems like he sees Isak everywhere.

He sees him walking through campus with the rest of the boys, that day they went to his place and smoked. He sees him in front of the main entrance, when they get out of lectures at the same time. Then this:

Monday in the reading hall by the nearby park, chin in his palm as he leans in over his table with bad posture and reads. Full-on concentration, frown between his brows.

Even texts him: "Look up."

After, he watches it as Isak shifts his attention from the book to the phone that must be lying on his table next to it, before he glances up, catches sight of Even, and smiles.

"Hi," Even whispers, once he's gotten Isak to join him at the other end of the hall where there are two desks and they can sit next to each other.

"Hey."

"Busy?" Isak shrugs. "Free after this?"

"Yeah," Isak says. "You?"

"Me, too," Even says. "Do something?"

He's an extrovert, so maybe that's why. He likes being around people, would most of the time rather be around people than be on his own, and has never had any issues inviting people along to things just to have a little company.

So, he's an extrovert. But there's also something about Isak that makes Even want to be around him specifically. That chemistry, maybe. The fact that Isak is the only person he can really talk about the pining with.

"Yeah," Isak says. "We could do something."

They go for a kebab.

It's Isak who suggests the place, and Even who tags along, excited that Isak has offered up something on his own and not just going along with whatever Even is doing. After, even though it's still cold outside, they find a bench to sit on and eat. 

"Do you know that I hung out with Jonas the other day?" Even asks. "He went with Mikael and our friends to the gym."

"Yeah, he said," Isak says. "How was that?"

"Okay. They almost got it on."

"No?" There's so much scandal in his voice that it makes Even laugh. Isak frowns. "Really?"

"No, not really, who do you think they are?" Even says, and laughs again when Isak rolls his eyes. "But they were very close."

"Right," Isak says. "Did you survive?" 

"No."

They both chuckle again, doing it together this time, and after they've stopped, Even keeps smiling, looking at Isak, while Isak goes back to his food, taking a bite and chewing it. Then, around his spoon, he grins.

"Actually we were at a cabin once," he says. "Us and his ex-girlfriend, and I–" 

He frees up one of his hands, making a quotation mark in the air besides his head– 

" _Accidentally_ walked in on them having sex."

"What?" Even says. "Why?"

"To stop them."

It's so funny, and Even laughs, earnest and real, imagining the picture that would have been, and watching the sincerity on Isak's face.

"That's so fucking petty," he says, and Isak nods, smiling, too.

"I know," he says. "To be fair to me, though–"

"No."

"Yes!" Isak giggles, a sound so genuinely natural and instinctual that Even feels just a little proud to have brought it out in him. "Shut up. To be fair to me," he repeats. "There's not a lot of stuff you can do in a cabin all alone and it was pretty late in the morning."

"Mm-hm. Sure."

"Oh, shut–" Isak shakes his head, and Even grins again. It's just so much fun to tease him, and make him look like this, all smiling and faux-annoyed and free from being hesitant. "I never should have told you anything."

"No, you shouldn't," Even says, and Isak sighs. Even doesn't know why he likes it so much when that happens, but he does. He smiles.

"Anyway," he says, then. "Was Jonas how you knew?"

"Was Mikael how you knew?" Isak asks, instead of replying, which Even notes but lets pass by without pressing. It's not like this isn't a sensitive subject to him, too.

"Kind of. I mean, it took me a while to realise that's not the way straight dudes usually feel about their friends–"

Isak snorts, but it's true. It took him a long time to realise that not every guy looks at their guy friends and kind of wants to kiss them.

Coming out for him was weird, actually. It was a slow move: being gender neutral when his family asked him about the future and marriage, saying _he looks pretty_ and _I wouldn't mind_ , when he and Sonja were looking at boys, pretending to be just an ally for a while to see how people reacted.

"Well, I don't like girls," Isak says. "So I was kind of panicked about that before I got to the Jonas part. And I didn't really get to the Jonas part before he got a girlfriend. We were, like, fifteen."

"You knew each other young."

"Yeah." Isak nods. "We were six, I think? Seven, maybe. First grade."

"Ah."

"He's-" Isak breaks himself off to poke at his food with his spoon, and he's not looking at Even now, enough so that Even understands that this is something that's difficult to say. Eventually, he finishes: "He's permanent."

If he hadn't said it like that, Even wouldn't have paid notice to it. He does now, though. And not only does he pay notice, he also wants to uncover, at the same time as he doesn't want to push. If he knows anything, it's about having secrets that you need to keep.

"Does he know?" he asks, instead of dwelling. "That you like him, I mean?"

Isak shakes his head.

"No," he says. "Or I haven't told him, anyway. I don't think he does."

"Hm. Would you tell him?"

"No." Frowning, Isak shakes his head again. "Of course not. Not while he's happy with Mikael, how selfish would that be? Would you tell Mikael?"

"He already knows. From before Jonas."

"You told him?"

 _I kissed him_ , Even thinks.

"He found out."

"Ah." Isak returns to his food, like he's thinking. Then: "Must have been weird?"

Compared to everything else that was happening, it was pretty much nothing. Even shrugs.

"We worked through it," he says.

"Hm." Again, Isak chews and thinks. "He's nice, though. Mikael, I mean. I get why you'd like him."

Poking at his food, he pauses a second. Then:

"I get why Jonas would."

He's so very kind, Even thinks. So very resigned to this, and so very invested in Jonas being happy.

"Well," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say. "He _is_ great."

"Yeah." Isak nods, and then: "But not great enough that you thought it was relatable to walk in on him being with someone else in order to stop it."

Even laughs, glad for the chance to ignore the sadness creeping in.

"No," he says. "I guess that means you're worse than me."

"I guess so," Isak says, and it's clear that he's trying to lighten the mood, or maybe trying to distract from the vulnerability they both just showed. Even appreciates it. Actually, Even appreciates him. "Although I'm not sure if that's a good competition to win." 

"So maybe I'm the winner?" Even says, playing along, and when Isak shrugs he smiles. 

It's fragile. But it's a little easier with Isak there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo! tell me your thoughts in the comments? are you into this version of even? this version of mikael? this version of some other character? i wanna know
> 
> also judging by the amount of characters in this you can probably already tell that there'll be a few sideplots. hope you're excited for that lol


	3. ISAK ⚬ Good thing we have each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo i'm back! hope you've had a great monday, mine's been very tired but i am still alive. if you're alive too, and also awake, then i hope you'll feel well-treated by this. enjoy!

Isak drops down in the seat next to Sana's in the lecture hall. It's Tuesday. It's early morning. He hung out with Even for the entirety of yesterday.

"Hey," Sana greets him, when he arrives. "You're looking considerably more cheery than you usually do in the early morning."

"It must be all of the sleep I didn't really get," he says. "You're looking good, too. Did you hang out with Yousef?"

"Alright, alright." She holds up her hands as if in surrender. "I won't go on about it, Isabel. Did you do the reading?"

"Yeah." Leaning down, he pulls his stuff, laptop and book, out of his backpack, opening up his OneNote to show Sana the notes he took of the reading, too. "Told you you'd never see me aiming for anything below a six, didn't I?"

"Hm." Like always, she sounds unimpressed. He smiles. "How's Noora?"

"Alright, I think." 

"Do you know how weird it is to hear Elias suddenly talk all about Jonas and you guys whenever we're hanging out together? How much of a coincidence is it that the Jonas and Mikael met completely independently of us?"

"Do you want me to do the statistics?"

"Shut up."

He smiles, and she does, too.

"No," she goes on. "But it's strange, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Did Jonas manage to set you and Even up as friends like you said he'd been talking about?"

"Mm-hm." Isak thinks of his phone lying face down on the table now, and of all of the texts in it that come from Even and make him smile. "We've been chatting, actually."

It's not meant to mean anything, but apparently he says it like it does, because Sana raises her brows at him. He rolls his eyes.

"Not like that." Looking unconvinced, she smiles. "It's not."

"Mm-hm." She still looks like she doesn't believe him. "Okay."

"I mean it."

"I believe you." 

It still doesn't look like she does. When he rolls his eyes again, she snorts.

"Whatever," he says. "Are you ready to kill this lecture, or what?"

"Yep," she says. "I am."

*

At lunch, instead of meeting up with the guys, he meets up with Even again, who's going to hand out fliers for the film-club and asked yesterday if he wanted to come. Isak doesn't really know why he said yes, but he did, and now he's here. Meeting up with Even in one of the courtyards.

"Hey," Even says, when he sees him, wearing that smile he's always wearing, and a big coat, too, because even though it's March it's still freezing. "You came."

"Of course." When Isak is close enough, Even opens his arms up to him, going for the hug again, and well: at this point Isak is used to it enough to hug him back. They embrace for a few seconds, then: "I said I would, didn't I?"

"That's true," Even says. "You did."

"Hm. So what are we doing?" Isak asks.

Even, who's holding some fliers in his gloved hands, taps on the front of the top one, so Isak turns his attention to it.

"Gonna put these up on some boards somewhere. See if we can charm some people enough to take one to go."

"You do know Facebook exists, right?"

"Shut up," Even says, and Isak smiles. "Look at the design, though, it's pretty. And being confronted with a real person who wants them to come will make more people come."

"Alright. Is that science, or…?"

"It's armchair science," Even says, and then, teasingly: "So, yes, it is."

"Well…"

"You don't like that?" Even asks, and he's smiling, now, like he's delighted by this. "You with your empirical data, and your numbers, and your research, and your hypothetico-deductive method, and-"

"We get it now."

"Okay, good. I was running out of things to name."

He's silly, and stupid, and Isak still laughs. Actually, those things are the reasons why he laughs, and there's something so easy about him, and about being around him. He's so warm, and so inviting, and Isak understands why Even's friends seem to gravitate around him, like they did that first night they met. Still:

"You're an idiot," he says, and can't help but smile when Even laughs about it.

"Do you say that to all the boys who aren't scientists?"

"You're impossible," Isak says, as Even keeps grinning wide. "Come on, are we going to get a move on, or what?"

"Alright, alright." Even hands him some fliers. "Here. Do you want to see me charm the group over there?"

Looking around to see what Even means, Isak catches sight of a group of three girls, standing a little way away from them, chatting about something.

"I mean, they look pretty occupied," Isak says.

"Yes, but I'm so pretty." Snorting, Isak raises his brows, and Even grins again, before he starts backing away. "Does my hair look James Dean enough?"

"Gross."

Even just winks at him, before he turns around, heading towards the girls, and Isak is left there looking after him with a frown that could be a smile, too.

It works, because of course it does.

At first they all look annoyed and square up their shoulders a little, the way Isak has seen girls do when boys approach them with unwelcome advances and has done himself a couple of times, when Eskild has managed to drag him to a gay bar and Isak has been uninterested.

There's so much enthusiasm in Even though, Isak can even see it in his back, and pretty quickly they all warm up and start smiling along with him, before it looks like one of them even makes a joke.

By the time Even leaves again they all have a flier in hand, and Isak is trying to school his expression into something that's amused but vaguely unimpressed, instead of the warm smile he wants to wear.

"So?" Even says, when he comes back, and Isak shrugs, trying not to give him too much.

"I was entertained," he says.

Even grins.

"High compliment from you," he says. "I'll take it."

"Alright."

At twenty minutes to their lectures, after they've walked around campus with the fliers, exactly as Even said they would, they give up and head to one of the canteens, where Even buys the both of them a coffee and a biscuit.

"You don't have to do that," Isak says, but Even shrugs it away like it's nothing. It's not, Isak supposes, and he actually pays a lot for people, too, that's not the problem. It's just that money is one of the things he's had to be on his own about since he moved out, and he still has hang-ups about accepting things from other people, because he didn't like having to get by on the generosity of other people alone. 

But it's just a coffee, and Even is just being nice, so Isak takes it with a nod, and:

"Well," he says. "Thank you, then."

"It's no problem."

"Okay."

"Excited for your lecture?" Even asks. "You and Sana, you seem like the kind of people who actually would be."

"What does that mean?" Isak asks.

"You're a nerd."

Isak scoffs, but at the same time it is true. Well. He cares about his subject and he cares about his grades and he cares about getting a job that will help him pay for himself.

"Excuse me," he says, still. "If me going to be a doctor means that I'm a nerd, then I'll take it."

"You are?" Even asks, and actually he looks impressed. "Really, you're way too clever and cool to be hanging around me. I'm going to be a starving artist."

"No," Isak says. "Not starving. I think you'll be good."

"You haven't seen any of my stuff."

"No, but I have a feeling."

After he's said it Even smiles, and Isak did mean something by it, did mean to show him support, but he's still a little surprised by how genuine Even's smile seems, like Isak saying that somehow means something to him. He's surprised because every time they've been together, Even has always seemed so goddamn confident.

It's happened a few times, actually. Even has said something that's made Isak feel like he's stumbled into the tip of an iceberg; the hint of something much, much deeper underneath. Like _he found out_ , as Even said about Mikael, and Isak hasn't quite stopped wondering about.

Being in the closet makes you used to studying others and yourself, and growing up in a house where everything feels on the brink makes you used to studying your surroundings. It's a natural inclination for Isak to wonder about him.

He won't ask, though. He knows about wanting privacy, and he'll let Even have his own.

"Okay," Even says, now, still smiling that warm smile. "And you're going to save lives."

"Yeah."

"And buy me a coffee, too."

Isak grins.

"Okay," he says.

"Okay."

When the clock strikes a little past one, and he's joining Sana for their next lecture, there's apparently enough of the smile left on him that she raises her brows, happy fucking smirk all over her face.

"What?" he says.

"Nothing." She goes back to her laptop. "Nothing at all."

*

When Isak gets home that afternoon from hanging out at the reading hall after his last lecture for a bit, there's a new text in his phone from Even: "One of the girls I charmed earlier just messaged me on Facebook."

"Did you charm them?" Isak writes back, smiling as he makes his way towards the kitchen where he can hear the voices of several girls. "Or were you just annoyingly persistent?"

"Shut up," Even writes back, and, stopping in the kitchen doorway, Isak snorts. "Maybe it doesn't work on you, but this girl thought I was very interesting."

He writes back: "Interesting and charming is not the same thing."

"Who's baby Jesus talking to now?" Eskild asks, drawing Isak into reality and making him look up to find Eskild standing at the kitchen counter, while all of the girls sit around the kitchen table eating pizza. "Something very interesting is happening on that phone."

"You sound like you're fifty and hate technology."

"Isak," Eva says, from the table, before Eskild can say anything to that. "Eat with us?"

"Yeah," Eskild says. "Listen to wonderful Eva over here. It's a kollektivet plus girls night. Gay guys plus girls night. Are you far enough along that we can simply call that a girl's night?"

"No, not really."

"Shame. One day I'll get you into tights."

"Right."

Eskild always jokes about that, and it's been a while since Isak was filled with fear just at the thought of that, but he's still not really into it. Even if he was, he doubts he'd be as brave as Eskild to actually go out and do it: be as visible as that; that obviously gay.

Instead of commenting he moves on:

"Are you sharing your food? Noora?"

"Go ahead. Chris and Eva are paying."

"Cool."

It can't really hurt to join them for a bit, and it doesn't really seem like he'll be offered another choice, either, so he joins them around the table, sitting next to Sana who he offers a little private smile, before he reaches out for a slice.

"Was it Even you were texting?" she asks, but thankfully does it under her breath, quiet enough that only he will hear.

"Shush."

She smiles.

"How's clever-people school?" Eva asks him after his first bite, sitting next to Noora who she's leaning a little bit close to, in a way that Isak notices. "How much of a nerd are you now?"

"You're treading water right now," Isak says. "You can tease me, but can you tease Sana?"

"Sana is clever. You're a nerd, there's a difference."

"You're just making that up."

"True," Eva says. "I have to, though. I can't get into to your fancy university, I don't have the grades, so I have to do something else. Actually, I have to find out what to do."

"Me, too," Chris says, placing herself by Eva's side like Isak has noticed she often does, with all of the girls, before she receives Eva's high-five. "Maybe we can get into business school."

"And meet a bunch of Williams? Sounds fun actually, we could fuck with them."

"I like your spirit."

"Right?"

Instead of continuing to listen, Isak leans in over Sana to catch the attention of Vilde, who's sitting on Sana's other side, briefly glancing at her phone.

"Hey," he says, to catch her attention. "Mags told me to say hi from him the next time that I saw you."

"Oh," she says, glancing up at him, and for a moment that old cheery façade sets in across her features, as she bounces from the quiet moment with her phone to a smile that's a bit too wide. "How's he?"

"Same old. Misses you. You're doing it again, by the way." At his words her face falls a little, but not into anything sad. Rather, it settles, going from the happy extreme to something more calm and honest. "How are you?"

She shrugs. It's not much, really, just a single tug of her shoulder, upwards, but Isak, who spent so much of his life hiding and pretending to be completely fine, sees it as the victory that it is.

"Okay," he says. "How's your mum?"

"You know. The state's helping, I'm helping. It's sort of the same old."

"Yeah."

It's the whole group, really, except for Chris and Sana, who have bad relationships with their parents. Noora's don't really care about her, Eva's mum is never home, Eskild's parents don't like that he's gay, and then there's Isak and Vilde: dads who left and mothers who are ill and both of them once trying to hide that they were gay.

It's the kind of story Even would like, Isak finds himself thinking. In Even's film about this whole thing Isak and Vilde would probably have helped each other come out, but in reality they were both too closed off to know what they had in common before it was too late to help each other, because they were already there.

They know it now, though, and he always finds himself asking.

"How's _your_ mum?" Vilde asks back, and he shrugs.

"The same."

She nods. As she does Sana reaches out to squeeze her shoulder, before she catches Isak's eye and gives him a smile. She says nothing, because that's not her style, but he understands, anyway.

"Scoot over, baby gay," Eskild says, then, appearing suddenly next to him, gesturing to the chair that Isak's sitting on. Isak frowns at him, not really sure they can both fit or, for that matter, if he wants to try, but Eskild just gestures again. "Come on."

"Alright, alright."

"What's up with my girls?" Eskild asks, and they do manage, but in this case that means that he's sitting half on top of Isak, with an arm around him that Isak would have pushed away earlier in his life but allows to stay now. "Villy, any cute girls on your horizon? No? You should try Tinder."

"Eskild."

"Are you talking to a Tinder boy, huh, baby gay? It can't be a Grindr boy, because I don't think they've ever made anyone smile that much. Horny? Yes-"

"Eskild."

"I'm kidding." Eskild adjusts the cap on top of Isak's head, somewhat affectionately. "I'm just kidding. Do you know, though, Sana-?"

"You're so annoying," Isak interrupts him. "It's just a friend."

"Hm. Old friend, though? New friend?" Isak sighs. "I have these tights that you'd actually look really good in."

Giving up a little, Isak just meets Sana's amused gaze and rolls his own eyes, shaking his head, too.

"I'm not going to wear tights," he says.

"Hm, you never know. Never say never. Like the Justin Bieber song, Noora, are you paying attention? We're talking about your idol."

"What?" Noora asks, from across the table, and Isak ponders if maybe he's lying to himself when he says that he's an introvert and he's actually perfectly fine being around most people all the time, except for Eskild who requires you to be on your toes almost constantly.

"Bieber," Eskild says. " _Never say never._ "

"Oh." Catching her eye like he did with Sana just before too, Isak rolls his eyes about Eskild again, and she smiles. "Okay?"

Eskild scoffs.

"Where's your enthusiasm?" he asks. "Are you tired?"

"You have to stop expecting people to know what you're on about at all times," Noora says, and Isak nods along with her.

"You do," he agrees.

"Don't gang up on me, I'm your guru."

"You're not," they both say, at the same time, and since Eskild, as usual, has gotten everyone's attention onto him, everyone else around the table laughs.

"I'm wounded," Eskild says. "I take you in and you wound me."

"Sorry."

This time Eskild doesn't just adjust Isak's cap, but pulls it off entirely, and discards it on the table instead, as Isak instinctively reaches up to card his fingers through it to fix it a little.

"You should let your curls out more," Eskild comments, and ruffles them up a little, too. "They're so pretty. The boys would come running."

Resigning himself to it, Isak sighs.

So it's just another Tuesday night.

*

On Thursday, they all go out to a bar for the first time.

It'll be a quiet night, or at least that's what they're planning, and, besides, Mikael and Yousef don't drink, so they're going to one of the bars that's a café in the day, where there's billiard and board-games and quiet enough to talk.

Isak and the usual boys get there first.

"It's going great, isn't it?" Mahdi says to Jonas while they're getting a beer each, planning to, as discreetly as possible, fill the glasses with store-bought cheaper stuff later. "With you and the boyfriend?"

"Mm." Jonas always gets this fond, warm smile on his face, whenever Mikael is brought up. Isak still aches a little about it. "Yeah. It's good."

"You're whipped, man," Magnus says. "You used to be the chill one."

"It's true," Isak chimes in, because he might as well joke along. "You should see the thing your face does around him."

"Right?" Magnus hits his shoulder, delighted. "I didn't even know he could look that soft."

"Stop it," Jonas says.

"To be fair," Magnus goes on anyway, making Jonas roll his eyes and Mahdi and Isak make eye-contact and smile, "he is a very sweet person. And that bright smile of his? Man. I might fall in love with him, too."

Isak wants a little bit to scoff at that, but he can't because it's true. Mikael really is a sweet person, with a warm sort of enthusiasm that makes it difficult for Isak not to like him. And he's funny, too, teasing Jonas, and teasing Even, and teasing Isak, too, once or twice when it was just them and Jonas.

"I thought you were still getting over Vilde?" he asks, instead of saying that.

"Sure," Magnus says. "But I can't do that forever, can I?"

"True." It's Mahdi, who pats his shoulder, too. "If you need a wingman at any point, I'm sure we'd all like to help. Well, Jonas might be a little occupied, and Isak might obsessing over his nerdy readings-"

"Excuse me."

"But I'll help."

"Thanks," Magnus says. "Might take you up on that."

"I'm going to be a doctor," Isak protests, because he feels like he has to assert himself a little.

"I don't doubt that for a second," Mahdi says. "And it's very commendable, really. You've just never ever bailed with us."

"You learn more by attending the lectures. Stop group-pressuring me."

"Okay, you two," Jonas says, turning around to face them with two beers in his hands. "Someone take the other two beers and lets get a table for us and change the topic."

"Okay," Mahdi says and, to the rest of them: "Mum friend has spoken."

While the rest of them laugh Jonas rolls his eyes and sighs. Isak is already having a great night.

It becomes even better when the rest of them arrive.

At first it's just Mikael and Even who walk in, Even with his arm slung casually around Mikael's shoulders until he lets go of him to hug the rest of them, which Magnus, especially, seems delighted about.

"Hey," he says, when he hugs Isak last, and Isak actually hugs him back for once, taking a moment to let himself be embraced in Even's warmth and Even's scent. 

When Even eventually pulls back, he keeps an arm on Isak's shoulder, leaning on him, and Isak doesn't know what this touching thing is, but he kind of likes it. It even makes it easier not to care about the way Jonas is kissing the corner of the mouth of a smiling Mikael.

"Boo," Even says, still, in their direction, and Isak snorts when Mikael flips him off over Jonas's shoulder. "What's with the saliva-exchange?"

"Hey, Ev," Mikael says, tint of shallow annoyance in it, but Even, maybe having gotten what he wanted, or maybe just enjoying the teasing, grins and holds his palms up in surrender. "Fuck off."

Laughing, Even waves them off, before he turns to the rest of them.

"So," he says. "What are we drinking?"

Just like that, then, the night has really begun.

An hour or so later Isak is playing a half-drunken game of billiard with Even, while the rest of the boys hang out around it.

"Bro," Adam says, leaning on Even's shoulder, touching like this group apparently always does, as he points to the billiard table in front of them. "You're kind of losing over here."

"Told you I'm the master," Isak says, and delights in it when it makes Even return his full attention to him. "Told you that you shouldn't have dared play against me."

"You're so fucking cocky," Even says, and Isak raises his brows.

"But I'm not wrong."

"We'll see."

"You know I love you, man, but Isak is kind of right," Adam says, and Isak reaches out for a high-five at the same time as Even nudges at his shoulder to nudge his arm off him. Adam just slaps Isak's hand back. "You're good at this."

"Party trick. Only works after a few drinks."

"Ah," Even says. "See now you're a classic villain, revealing valuable information that could doom you to your opponent."

"I'm already tipsy," Isak says. "It's too late for you to do anything."

"But next time," Even says, and Isak doesn't know why that, of all things, sends a little thrill through his half-drunken mind. "Because there will be a next time. This isn't over tonight, Isak."

"Oh, it's not, is it?"

"It's not," Even says.

"It's your turn."

Grinning, Even turns back to the table, and Isak bites his lip as he watches it and keeps watching it, feeling drunk and warm and happy, as he reaches out to sip at his now-slightly-lukewarm beer, too.

Behind Even, Jonas and Mikael are in their seats, arms around each other as they lean in close to say things to each other and smile, but right now Isak hardly sees it. Right now he's looking at Even, instead, watching him lean over the table and hit the white ball just right, so a blue and a red one into one of the holes.

"Eh?" he says, when he's stretched out to his full height again. "Never speak too soon. I'm still in the game."

"Alright," Isak says, before he leans in over the table, too. "But watch this."

"Oh, I'm watching."

Isak rolls his eyes at him through his eyelashes, and Even bites his lip, too. What was that thing about Even being pretty? Isak is remembering it now.

"Oh," Even says, when he hits the white ball and misses the yellow one he was aiming for, making them tied. "Did you just feel the power dynamic shift?"

"Shut up."

"What do you say to that, eh, Adam? Proud of me yet?"

"Always proud of you, man," Adam says, and when Isak looks at him he sees that he's distracted by- Isak checks– a group of girls who just walked in through the door. Meeting Even's gaze, they share a smile, amused on his behalf. "Does my hair still look okay?"

Snorting, Even shakes his head at him.

"Thought this was a boy's night out?" he asks, teasingly, but when Adam turns towards him he still reaches up to fix his hair a little and smooth out some wrinkles in his shirt. "Hm?"

"Some people have needs, man."

Turning back to Isak, Even fakes a scoff.

"Abandoned again," he says, and just as he does Adam slaps his shoulder once before leaving. "Guess it's our M.O. now."

Because it's relevant now, Isak nods towards the seating behind Even, where Jonas and Mikael have moved on from leaning in close and talking to kissing and whispering instead. When Even's glanced behind himself to look at them, he turns back while shaking his head.

"Good thing we have each other, huh?" he asks, and Isak has to nod.

"Yeah," he says. "Good thing we have each other."

*

When they stumble their way out of the bar, three am because of course it turned three am, they're doing it all together.

Isak is a little tipsy still, from the beers he kept drinking throughout the night, and so is everyone else except for Yousef and Mikael and, for some reason that Isak doesn't know, Even, who didn't really drink a lot after his first two beers.

In front of them a pretty drunk Jonas is stumbling along, holding onto Mikael's hand while Mikael chuckles at him. Isak, who's always been particularly fond of drunk Jonas, can't help but smile, too, as he watches them.

"They are quite cute, aren't they?" Even says, and when Isak turns to glance at him, Even is watching him, not them. "I suppose you'd have to give them that."

You have. They're newly in love, and they make each other happy, and right now, drunk and on his way home under a starry night sky, Isak doesn't even mind it that much. So:

"Yeah," he says. "I suppose you do."

*

When he gets home Vilde and Chris are there with Noora, too, a little drunk and planning to sleep over, and when he meets them in the kitchen, Vilde asks if he was just with _Sana's brother's friends, with Even?_

"Yeah?" he says. "Why?"

"Did you hear that he's bipolar, like Mags's mum?"

Isak closes his eyes. Of course, of course. It makes sense, then, why he wouldn't drink, and why Isak has been stumbling into something deep and hidden during their conversations from time to time.

"No," he says. "That's none of our business though, unless he chooses to tell us."

"No, I know," Vilde says, but waves the complaint away, and she's drunk, still, which Isak thinks is why she's still going. "It's just funny that it's the same thing. And there are all these rumours circulating about it."

"I don't think you should tell me anything else."

"Apparently he kissed Mikael once."

Isak wants her to shut up.

 _He found out._ That's what that means.

They're not the same. They're similar, sure, but it's not the exact same story then, and considering this new information Isak thinks that maybe Even has it worse than he does. He's not just pining, he was rejected.

"And-"

"No," Isak says. "Stop, Vilde. You can't go around telling other people for him. How would you like that?"

Her face falls, a little, and maybe his tone was too harsh, which he feels immediately bad about, but he really doesn't want to be given this information without Even's consent. 

"I was just–" she says, and pauses, then: "Sorry."

He shrugs, and it barely takes her any time to leave. When he gets into his room, door closed behind him, there's a text from Even waiting in his phone: "Get home okay?"

He's so kind, and so observant, and Isak supposes maybe that means he should have known that the thing he was hiding would be something difficult and sad. No-one who's as kind as Even is has ever had it easy.

He answers back, feeling bad about knowing what he now does, and feeling a sort of kindness, or at least a desire to be kind, stretched out towards Even through the connection of their phones.

They keep texting for a while. When he eventually falls asleep, it's with his phone still in his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how are we feeling? what's our favorite scene? are we still into jonas and mikael? how do we feel about them getting closer? about the rumor thing? i promise we'll address it in even's pov. tell me your thoughts in the comments!


	4. EVEN ⚬ If it's long we better get started

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again! hope you're ready for another dose of sweet boys being sweet, or whatever the nickname for this is going to be. what's the nickname for this going to be? leave your suggestions in the– no, i'm kidding. enjoy!

Sonja is over again.

They're on his bed, like they always are, different ends of it, and maybe that's residue from when they were dating, too, just like the podcast that they're listening to that they started back in second year when they were still together is, or the way her hand is resting close to his ankle, almost touching.

Like he said before: they're a little bit stuck in the past.

Also, he's texting Isak.

"Are you even listening?" she asks him, kicking at his bent knee and making him look up from his phone just briefly. "You don't look like you're listening."

"I'm listening," he says.

"Okay. So what are they talking about, then?"

When he can't reply she rolls her eyes, kicking at his knee again, but with not a lot of venom in it.

"What are you even doing on that phone? Is it Mikael again?" she asks. "You're smiling a lot, anyway. Is it Tinder?"

"Uh," he says. "Don't you think it's a little bit weird to talk about romance to each other?"

"No, not particularly," she says, and maybe it's not, he doesn't know. She's the only ex he has. So:

"I'm texting," he offers.

"Mikael?"

"No. Isak."

"Oh." She says it like she's intrigued, and when she raises her brows at him, amused, he rolls his eyes. "Interesting."

"It's really not."

On the other end of the bed she fishes her phone out, too, and he watches it, through the arch under one of his knees, as she lies back and does something on it, concentrated frown between her brows.

"Isak, you said?"

He realises what she's doing.

"No," he says. "Sonja, no."

Shifting around he comes down to the other end, where he reaches out to pull the phone out of her grasp, holding it just out of reach while she looks at him, annoyed, and it could be a teasing, funny thing, and was probably meant to be a teasing, funny thing, but she's gotten too mixed up in too much already.

"Come on," she says. "Calm down. I just wanted to look at him."

"I mean it," he says. "I don't want you to message him, or to get yourself mixed up in this, or to follow him, or anything, okay? This is not- This is mine."

What he really means is that he doesn't want her to bring up his past to his new friends and to take that out of his hands, because it's haunting enough already as it is, without having to factor her into the equation. 

"Okay," she says. "Jeez. I just wanted to see what he looks like."

Even hesitates. They have a good relationship now, but there's so much old stuff right beneath the surface, threatening to spill out if you poke just a little too hard. At the same time it's harmless, too, probably, so he gives her her phone back.

"He's blond," he offers, and she smiles. "And he's just a friend."

"Mm-hm. Blond, though."

"Shut up."

"Going back to where you started?"

"Okay," he says, taking her phone again and hiding it under his pillow to the tune of her laughter. "I just changed my mind, I think. You don't actually get to look."

"Come on," she says.

"No. It's too late now, you had your chance. Listen to the podcast, instead."

"You're annoying," she says, but when they go back to listening, the both of them are smiling. She even smiles when his phone buzzes, and he leans down to get it. 

So, okay: Maybe he's a little bit intrigued.

*

A week after they last went out, they go out again.

It's not that he's stopped pining after Mikael. He feels warm in his chest for him a lot, and weak in his knees and in everything else, because whatever Mikael asks for, people want to give him.

That's not just him, though, that's just how Mikael is and, anyway, it's not the first time Even has liked someone a lot but also kind of noticed someone else. _Noticed_ him, with everything that comes along with that.

Actually, he's sitting with an arm slung around Mikael's shoulders, looking at Isak instead.

"Are you abandoning me?" Jonas asks Mikael, from across the table where him and Isak are sitting, a beer in front of each of them. Even, on the other hand, is not drinking tonight, and neither is Mikael.

"Yeah," Mikael says, teasingly. "While you're engaging in haram behaviour, I am."

"The beer?"

"Mm-hm. But go on. I'll be sober enough to bring you home."

"Will you be sober enough to stay, too?"

"I don't know," Mikael says. "You'll have to convince me."

"Down, boy," Even says, and Mikael snorts. "No one called our names but just so you know we're all present."

"He's right," Isak says, and then, to Jonas: "And you have appallingly little game."

"What?" Jonas says. "I'm smooth."

"Well." It's Mikael, now. "Smooth is a broad concept."

As Jonas scoffs, Isak and Mikael share a laugh, which Even watches. It's weird to imagine the two of them liking each other, but something about it makes him feel warm in his chest, too; about thinking of the two of them getting along.

"Rude," Jonas says and Mikael, sweet as he always is, reaches out to touch Jonas's hand, a gesture which Even watches before he looks back to Isak, finds Isak looking back, and shares a smile with him. It's okay. Right now it's okay.

A few minutes later he's the one getting everyone who wants it a round of fresh beer, before he goes to the billiard table, leans back against it, and catches Isak's eye again.

"Ready to lose?" Isak asks, once he joins him at the table.

"Oh, no," Even says. "I'm ready to win."

"Shame, then, that I'll have to disappoint."

Smiling, Even bites his lip.

"You'll have to disappoint, will you?"

"Yeah. I've won until now, haven't I?"

Even, chuckling, feels thrilled. Comfortable and eager and warm and happy, as Isak raises his brows, daringly, and Even raises his own back.

"I don't know, Isak, I don't know," he says. "Maybe I'm playing a long game."

"Oh, yeah? Well play, then," Isak says. "If it's long we better get started."

"Don't worry," Even says. "I'll play. You'll see the rest soon enough."

He sees it all from outside, actually, because he always sees himself that way. Sees the nonchalant sip of his beer he's taking, the way he plays along with Isak's whims, the way he's trying to step first and see if Isak will follow. Earthquake, earthquake, like it is every time.

He's flirting, and it's intentional, and he thinks it's working, too. 

It's what he has going for him, he thinks sometimes. He's brilliant at hooking people and making them like him the first time they meet. He's less good at the later parts because his edges are sharp when you too close, and it's easy to like the charming boy and less easy to like the broken one, the everything that comes up comes down one, but he's good at this part: the beginning.

Isak plays along, too, although he still looks back to Jonas and Mikael sometimes and gets this little look on his face, and Even thinks he gets it: 

It's fun to flirt with your friends, especially when it's not meant to mean anything.

"So," Adam says, that night in the bathroom when they're all a little tipsy, brushing their teeth, and Even is washing the hair-gel out of his hair. "Any reason as to why Isak didn't end up coming back with us?"

"What?" Even asks.

"I mean, you were laying it on quite thickly, man."

"He's right," Mutta chimes in. "And Isak was giving it back, too."

"He was drunk. We were flirting." When they both raise their brows, he shrugs. "I don't think it means anything from his side."

"And yours?"

And his. Asked like it matters at all, when actually it doesn't, because Isak is in love with someone else, and that makes it easier. The fact that Even is still hung up on Mikael makes it easier, too. Means that they can flirt like they are right now, having fun with it, knowing that nothing will come of it, which is probably for the better anyway. 

He shrugs.

"Well," Adam says, reaching out to give his shoulder a squeeze. "We'll see, I guess. I'm gonna head to bed, anyway. See you losers tomorrow."

"Sleep tight," Even says.

"Thanks, Romeo. Adios."

"Night," Mutta calls after him, before he says the same thing to Even, too, and closes the door behind him when he leaves.

Left alone in the bathroom, Even towels his hair dry, watching himself in the mirror, before he opens the bathroom cabinet and pulls out his bottle of pills.

So that might be a reason, too, why he thinks it's good that it's not leading anywhere.

He pretends to not be thinking too much about it, because he can see it already. How it would play out if any of them were available: The brightness, and the fun, and how Isak could make him feel like he finally has somewhere to belong, just like Mikael and Sonja did, until boom: they've crashed to the ground somewhere, because everything always does, and he's left to pick up the pieces. 

He can see it, and the only reason he's not terrified is that there's no chance of it happening. At least not right now.

*

On Friday he's at work at KB and he may not be hungover, but he is quite done with it, especially since the weather is nice for the first time in ages and everyone and their baby stroller have decided on visiting today.

Then Isak and Sana walk in. And suddenly Even feels a lot brighter.

"Hey," he says, when they reach the till. "Shut everything down, the two genuises are visiting."

"Alright," Isak says, as Sana looks at him and sighs. Still, when he leans over to kiss her cheek, she presents it to him.

"Do you want one, too?" he asks Isak, and delights in it when he blushes a little. It is cute. "No?"

"Save it for later," Isak says.

"Oh, wow. Okay."

"Maybe once you actually win a game like you keep saying you will."

This time Even laughs, and he likes this, actually, the way Isak can go from blushing to cocky in less than two seconds. Likes all these contradictions that he carries in him effortlessly.

"Alright," he says. "Deal."

"Okay, let's move it along," Sana says, and when Even grins, Isak does it with him. "Do you have anything cheap on the menu."

"Don't let my manager hear this," Even says. "But no, it's all overprized. I can get you some employee discount, though. Fifty percent, whatever you want."

Once they've ordered, they find a seat, and Even watches them over the coffee-machine, chatting about something. Once again his eyes are drawn to Isak, and it's impressive, he thinks, how grumpy he can look one second and how genuinely compassionate the next.

Like he said: contradictions.

It's not the last time Isak comes to the KB to study during Even's work hours and brings a friend, too. The following week, when he walks in, it's Magnus who's tagging along.

"Yo," Magnus says, when they arrive at the counter, him with a spring in his step, and Isak lagging behind, looking a tiny bit exasperated in that way that Even can't stop finding endearing. "Even, my man."

"Hi," Even says, slapping his hand when he offers it. Isak, coming up behind him, only offers a smile, but the privacy of it still warms something in Even's chest. "What's up?"

"You're pan, right–?"

"Oh, my God." It's Isak who breathes it out, hiding his face in his palm and shaking it, which makes Even snort. "Mags, come on."

"What? It's all over his social media."

"It's true," Even offers, and Magnus grins, elbowing Isak in the side.

"See, grumpy-pants," he says. "You're the only one with the problem here."

"Why don't you go to Jonas to chat about this new sexual identity crisis of yours?" Isak asks. "He's literally been through the exact same thing."

Oh, Even thinks, assessing Magnus a little. He's heard about that ex-girlfriend of his who turned out to be a lesbian, because he talks about her a lot when he's had a few drinks. Apparently that's not all for him though.

"Uh," Magnus says, to Isak. "Do you really think Jonas would have anything to say other than _I'm so chill that worrying about anything is the opposite of relatable to me_ and _I'm so in love, Mags, did I tell you that I'm in love?_?"

Isak laughs, and Even does, too.

"That does sound very much like him," Isak says. 

"Dude." Magnus is speaking to Even, now, and Even raises his brows to encourage him to go on. "That Mikael best friend of yours is literally all he talks about. Like, to the degree that we all hate him just a little."

"I don't know about that," Isak says, which is so funny, considering that he has the most reason to dislike Mikael, that Even can't help but snort. Isak rolls his eyes at him. Magnus turns to Isak.

"Are you telling me," he says, "that it doesn't annoy you even a little bit that fifty percent of conversations with him end up back at _Mikael is so great_?"

"The other fifty is worse," Isak says, which is definitely, definitely, a lie.

" _The world is shit and here's why, explained in great detail_?" Magnus asks, and when Isak nods they both laugh, and Even, just like always, is so fascinated by Isak's ability to go from grumpy to joking in solidarity in less than half a minute.

"Anyway," Magnus says, turning back to Even, now. "How do you know that what you're feeling for boys is not what everyone else is feeling?"

"He's at work," Isak says, instantly back to the annoyed tone, and the fact that he's annoyed on Even's behalf makes Even that much more endeared by it. "Can you wait, maybe?"

Magnus sighs, gesturing behind him.

"Are we holding up any line? No."

"If you're asking yourself that," Even says, cutting through their bickering. "Then chances are what you're feeling, is not what everyone is feeling."

Magnus, now silent, watches him for a moment, before he turns back to Isak, impressed tilt to it when he shrugs that makes Isak raise his brows.

"Damn," he says, before he turns back to Even. "Good advice, man."

Even shrugs, and this time Magnus nods, but still like he's impressed. When Even glances at Isak, too, Isak is watching him, smiling, before he nods as well, but like he's saying thank you.

There's so much kindness in him. So much love for his friends.

Even is still intrigued.

*

His good mood can't really last forever.

A few days later he's heading out for a kebab with Mikael on their 10-17 day, when they find a bench to sit on and Mikael goes quiet and pokes at his food, like he has something to say.

For a while Even just sits by him, eating and waiting in silence as Mikael looks like he's figuring out how to start the conversation. Around them birds chirp, and it's weird that the weather is spring-like while Mikael is looking like this.

Eventually Even gets tired of waiting.

"You're being really unsubtle," he says, wanting to make Mikael talk, and Mikael smiles into his food, sweet like he always is, before he lifts his head, almost resolutely, and meets Even's gaze.

"This is difficult," he says.

"Okay?"

There's a long, long pause, where Mikael goes back to poking at his food, and there are not a lot of things that can make him as quiet as this. Even's heart starts sinking a little. 

"Some rumors are circulating."

Ah.

Of course there fucking is. Of course Even couldn't reasonably hope to get to move on from it, even though he deleted the Facebook account and did everything in his power to get up on and move forward. 

It haunts him. Not just inside of his own head, but in real life, too.

"How much?" he asks. "Everything, or-?"

"Yeah, I think everything."

Even kind of wants to find whoever dared to spread that kind of information and tell them a thing or two, but he knows that if he ever did it'd be another _crazy_ thing to spread around about him, _he's breaking down again_ , instead of a perfectly reasonable response to people spreading his personal trauma around like it wasn't fucking that: traumatic.

"Just me, or you, too?"

"I'm kind of an integral part of the story, aren't I?"

He says it like he's offering it, always so sweet, like he's trying to make Even smile, and Even is so fucking angry, and Mikael doesn't deserve this.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"I don't give a shit. Even." Mikael looks at him, resolutely. "I only care about you. How you're feeling."

"Pissed off."

"Yeah." Mikael nods. "Me, too."

Their eyes meet at that, but none of them say anything. He's so giving though, just looking back without judgment, although Even feels like maybe Mikael should hate him a little for all of this.

They both go back to picking at their food. Mikael actually eats, and Even just thinks about how the whole thing is so unfair. How it seems almost impossible, sometimes, to escape from his past, and how choosing recovery is made so fucking difficult by the fact that all anyone ever seems to care about is how it looks when it's bad.

"I kind of need to tell Jonas," Mikael says then. "Or, I mean, at least about…"

He can't say it, so Even will.

"How we kissed?" he says. "Or, sorry– How I kissed you?"

"Don't be mad."

When their eyes meet again, Mikael's are calm in that way they always are when Even gets annoyed: kind, still, but determined, too. And Even hates being angry. He thinks of himself as a person who likes people, who finds it easy to love them, and most of the time that's true, but when it comes to this thing he can't stop being so damn frustrated by it.

"Maybe it's none of his business, it's just, if it looks like I'm keeping it hidden, it's-"

"Doesn't he trust you?"

"Please, Even." It sounds desperate, coming out of him. "I just want to be honest with him, without also making you mad or breaking your trust. I just really want to talk to him about what happened."

"Why to him?"

"Because I love him," Mikael says, and maybe it's horrible that that hurts, but it does, just a little. "And because it's still making me sad in ways I can't talk to you about, and I need to say it someone, I need-"

He breaks off and Even realizes, startled, that his voice was about to break.

"I just need to say it to someone who wasn't there," he goes on, voice leveled again in a way that makes it clear that this is happening no matter what Even says. "And I'm lying by omission which I don't want to do anymore."

"Okay," Even says, because there's nothing else he can say. Can he really deny a miserable Mikael the simple thing he so desperately wants, even though it means revealing his past? He doesn't think he can.

"Is it really okay?" Mikael asks.

"Whatever," Even says, but not so much in anger as it is resigned. When Mikael looks at him, he shrugs.

"Thank you," Mikael says, and Even shrugs again. It's fine. It's whatever. It's the best of a bunch of bad choices.

When they go back to uni, silence sitting a little too thickly between now, another thing occurs to him: if there are rumors circulating, then maybe Jonas already knows. Maybe that whole group does.

Maybe Isak does, too.

*

That evening he asks Isak over to the flat, and it's for two things: 

First, his company. And second, to tell him.

It's weird, really, because he's kind of drained, and he doesn't really want to hang out with anyone else, and it's not like him and Isak are too close just yet, but there's something about him that Even wants to be around right now.

It's not his humour, he doesn't think, although a little cheering up would be nice. Instead it's the way he can bring a sort of calmness to a room, like he's spinning bubbles of peace and letting Even step inside. The way he can exist around people in silence.

Once Isak arrives they hang out on Even's bed, heads on opposite ends and feet meeting in the middle. It's the same position as him and Sonja always find themselves sitting in.

"Any specific reason why you suddenly desired my company?" Isak asks.

He's playing with a string coming out of Even's bed-throw and he's watching Even, too, but not like he's expecting anything, or necessarily studying him. Just like he's waiting for Even to speak, and getting ready to listen.

It's that ability, probably, to just wait and listen and make Even feel calm and at ease, that Even likes so much.

"Kind of," Even says. "Just had a bit of a bad day."

"Hm. You know, there's a very weird mood in the flat tonight," Isak says. "Does it have anything to do with that?"

"What do you mean weird?" Even asks, but amused, suddenly, and mock-offended, too. "Are you saying we're weird?"

"I'm saying it's a little bit weird that Mutta just ominously stayed in your doorway for a minute when I arrived."

When Even came home earlier it was like both him and Adam could see that something was wrong. They frowned, at least, and did that thing where they shared a look about him, and normally Even would be happy to see them caring, but he's still angry and upset, so instead of smiling about it, he rolled his eyes.

"I'm not a baby, you know," he said, because the worst part about the whole thing is having his agency stolen away. Mutta said sorry, and Adam held up his hands in surrender, and Even left them to go into his room.

Now that Isak's mentioned it, though, he sees how it's kind of funny. So, still drained, he smiles.

"You don't have to tell me," Isak goes on, and there's something so desperately kind and observant about that, that Even's heart aches just a little bit for him. "I'm fine with just being here."

"Are you?" Even asks. "Because that's kind of..."

"What you want?"

"Yeah."

"That's fine," Isak says, and then he lies back on his pillow, foot-end of Even's bed, and turns his head so he's glancing out the window. It's dark enough now that the stars are out.

"If I wasn't doing Biology," he says. "I would have liked to study the stars."

Even is absolutely certain that he knows exactly what he's doing. He doesn't seem like the kind of person who slips up on sharing things, but like the kind of person who offers information slowly and only to the ones he trusts. He's glad to be one of them.

"Yeah?" he says. "Why?"

"I might rant a little."

"That's okay. I'd like to see that, actually."

He doesn't mean it to be flirty that time, but Isak still blushes, just a tiny, pink tint, and Even finds himself staring at it, before he finds himself kind of wanting to reach out and touch.

"Okay," Isak says. "Well. I like this idea that there are parallel universes. It's kind of disputed, by most scientists, and when you look at the data it is a bit iffy, for now, but I think it's a nice idea, even if maybe it isn't pure science. I mean, you can't even really falsify the theory, so-"

"Why do you like it?" Even interrupts him, and Isak smiles, sort of sheepishly.

"Right," he says. "It's just cool, isn't it? That out there there are versions of us that are almost us, but not quite. That anything that can happen will happen, and actually it's already happening, somewhere else in the universe."

"Murphy's law."

"You know that from a movie."

"Correct," Even says, and Isak smiles. "Do you think the guy who came up with the idea was sort of high?"

"Shut up." Even can't help but laugh, because Isak is so delightful. "I'm serious. It's cool."

"No, it is," Even says, and actually he does think so. He can see the appeal. A million different lives, some of them better and some of them worse. It's kind of like the way he thinks about stories, really, always so acutely aware of the way his life looks from the outside.

"Can I tell you something?" he asks, because this is the part of his story where that's the thing he says. Isak looks at him and nods.

"Yeah?" he says. "Go ahead."

"I–" Even pauses. "The thing that happened today, the thing that's making the mood tonight weird, it's happening because something came up that's to do with something that I am."

It's incredibly vague, he realizes, but Isak's eyes widen like he understands. Oh.

"Wait," he says, and Even can already tell where this is going. Worst fears confirmed. "Can I tell you something first?"

Great.

"Okay."

"I-" Isak pauses. "I kind of already know."

So he didn't even get to have to this.

"I mean, I think I know what you're talking about anyway, and I didn't mean to- I wasn't looking to find out, it just kind of happened, and I didn't know if I should bring it up or wait until you did."

"How long?" Even asks.

"The first time we went out."

So a while, then, a week or so. But he's still here, and that means-

They flirted while Isak knew. Even doesn't at all know what to do with that information.

"What do you know?" he asks instead, because maybe there are still some things he can get to reveal himself.

"I know that you're bipolar," Isak says. "Like Magnus's mum."

Oh. So he knows a little about it already.

"And I know that you and Mikael kissed once. And that's all."

And that's all. So at least he doesn't know about what came after the kiss. It would be blessing, Even thinks, if he had the capacity to look at any of this from the bright side, but he doesn't. He's tired of trying to.

"We didn't kiss," he says, instead.

"What?"

"We didn't kiss, I kissed him."

"Oh."

"He was still in the closet, then, and it was really hard for him so he rejected the kiss, although I'm pretty sure we liked each other and it wasn't just me. I was manic, that's why I did it. And I was still with my ex-girlfriend."

"Okay."

"So I kind of physically cheated on her. Emotionally, I did it for a while."

"What are you doing?" Isak asks.

"I hate that it's not my story to tell, that it's other people's gossip even though it's my life. And no one ever says it like it's a delicate thing. They just love the gory parts, without caring about any of the details or the nuance or anything."

"I told off the girl who told me," Isak says, and Even is so upset right now, but Isak still makes him pause in the middle of that to smile.

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hm. Maybe a little too harshly, too, so I think I still need to talk to her."

It's stupid. It's so stupid. But Isak is sitting there, moonlight dancing over his left side, smiling and offering up exactly what Even craves to be offered, somehow, and everything about it helps calm Even down. He draws in a few deep breaths. 

"That's funny," he says.

"A little bit."

"Yeah."

"When I was trying to come out, this girl, who I didn't want to date, started spreading rumors about me," Isak says, and Even looks at him looking away, tugging at a string poking out of his jeans, before he glances up to meet Even's gaze again. "I hated it. Not that it's the same, but..."

He shrugs, and not being into the gossip is common courtesy, really, but it's still something that Even is so unused to that it almost startles him. Certainly it makes him drained with relief, at the same time that Isak's story makes him ache a little for him. 

"Rumors suck," he offers.

Isak chuckles, softly. 

"Yeah," he says. "Rumors suck."

The both of them smile together, across the distance of the bed, and Isak's eyes light up with it, while his curls are lit by the bedside table lamp, and it's the first time, then, that Even has wanted to kiss him for more than just fun.

He closes his eyes.

Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yoooo so we're getting somewhere, we're getting somewhere. how do we feel about this development? how do we feel about even's pov this time? let me know that or something else in the comments lol
> 
> also i assume you knew from the tags and the beginning note already that we're dealing a bit with the past in this, because i apparently refuse to not try to explore even's pov of that. basically this whole fic is allow even bech næsheim to speak for himself propaganda


	5. ISAK ⚬ Jump

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo! happy saturday! hope you've had a great week, and are having a great weekend now. maybe this will give it a boost? either way, i hope you enjoy!

Throughout his stay at uni, Isak hasn't really gone through a lot of effort to meet new friends. 

He has a bunch of them already, anyway, and he's not good at meeting new people. Actually he rarely thinks that they have anything new or interesting to say, so it's not like he has a lot of insensitive to give it a try either. It's just that he's picky when it comes to letting people in.

It's been so natural with Even, though. Been hardly a month, and still Isak feels as close to him as it took him ages to start feeling about all of his other friends, and still Even is thoroughly integrated into his life now.

Like today, when Even is hanging with him while he's at work in the library.

"I can't believe you work here, and I'm the movie guy," he says, walking along with Isak as he's putting books back on their shelves, rolling the cart of it through the aisles. "You're surrounded by stories constantly."

"Well, mostly I sit at a desk and do the organisational bits," Isak says.

"Which I bet you actually enjoy a little."

Isak rolls his eyes at him, but it is true, actually. He likes the logic of it, and the way he's putting things back in order, working behind scenes to make everything work seamlessly. Doing the thankless job that holds everything together.

"No comment," he says, and Even snorts. Isak smiles.

As they walk along, through the rows and rows of books, Even runs his fingertip along the spines of them, stopping once in a while to pull some out and look at them, before he goes to great length, teasingly, to show Isak that he's putting them back right. 

Isak makes sure to look unimpressed every time, but he really does appreciate it.

"Oh!" Even says, eventually, pulling out a book and showing it to Isak. It's Romeo and Juliet; an old, laminated copy of the play. "The original."

"Okay," Isak says. "What is it with you and these bleak as fuck love stories anyway? It's on your wall too, and everything."

"Bleak as fuck?" Even asks, voice high like it is when he's amused.

"Yeah," Isak says.

"Yeah?" Even teases him, smiling, and then shrugs. "Well, aren't you more moved by the love stories that don't end well? There's a reason we make operas and new adaptations out of Romeo and Juliet, but only really tell the stories with the happy endings one time. And all the classic love stories have an element of tragedy in them. Titanic? All the terminal illness ones?"

"But they're sad," Isak says. "Wouldn't you rather watch something that ends happily?"

"I don't know." Even shrugs. "Are you really telling me you've never been drawn towards something sad and destructive just out of pure curiosity?" 

"Morbid curiosity," Isak says.

"Okay, morbid curiosity. You really haven't?"

"No." 

Isak shrugs, and Even frowns, like he doesn't believe it, but Isak actually hasn't. Not really, anyway. He's seen people who feels that way, though, and he notices it. Worries a little about it, too, because it's sad to think that that's how Even often feels.

"Strange," Even says.

"Alright." 

Isak rolls his eyes. As they walk along he along he thinks, stuck on the idea that all the classics are filled with tragedy. Surely that can't be always true, and he wants to offer Even an example of something that isn't, so: 

"What about– I don't know," he says. "Pride and prejudice?"

Even turns around to face him, brows raised like he's amused.

"You've read that?" he asks.

"No, I didn't read it. I watched it," Isak says. "Noora, my roommate, likes Keira Knightley. My other roommate, Eskild, says it's because she's a lesbian."

Just like Isak hoped it would, that makes Even laugh, out loud.

"Great," he says. "They sound great. I'd like to meet them sometime."

If it's unusual for Isak to like new people, it's even more unusual for him to want to bring them home, because it's so personal. _Here's the place I live, and all the things I don't have, and all the things that went wrong in my life._

Even, though. Even he kind of wants to invite in, anyway.

"You could," he says.

"Yeah?" Isak nods, and Even smiles. "Deal."

"Okay."

"Tonight?"

Isak can't help but smile, amused by him and his eagerness, and the way he somehow always manages to drag Isak along, and make Isak want to follow him everywhere he goes.

"You really don't like to take things slow, do you?"

"Why do tomorrow what you can do today?" Even asks, and then, snapping his fingers: "No, you know what we should do? Speaking of movies and everything? We should go watch one of those."

"You're so all over the place," Isak says.

"Well, I am bipolar."

"Wow." 

The way he just jokes about it, like it's not that big of a deal. Isak wishes he could have that kind of approach to the trauma in his life.

He still feels a little bad that it was something he found out before Even got to tell him.

A few days earlier Vilde was over in the evening, visiting Noora, when Isak met her in the kitchen, and they talked. Not a lot other than her apologizing for spreading the rumors, him saying she should say that to Even, him apologizing for being a bit harsh, and the two of them, trying, trying, to return to their normal footing again. Delicately, but determined, because somehow Vilde has come to be someone Isak wants to be kind to. 

"Come on," Even says, drawing him back to reality. "Go see a movie with me?"

As it often happens, Isak feels sort of swept along with him. The eagerness, the grin, the way Isak really likes to be in the presence of him because he has a nice energy. It's comfortable. He feels safe.

"Okay," he says, and Even grins.

"Good," he says. "Can't wait."

Four hours later, then, after Isak is off work and they've made their way there, they're walking into a movie theatre.

Even buys them candy from the store in the theatre, not from one of the cheaper shops outside, and it's another reminder that he's always had money that Isak notes but moves on from. 

In the theatre Even nudges his shoes off, and then he folds his legs in front of him on his chair, jeans riding up so his ankles are showing, clad in white socks, and Isak kind of can't stop looking.

He's so free, that's the thing. Or he moves like he's free, anyway, like in this moment he feels at ease in the world, and it's fascinating to Isak, who can't remember ever not holding back a little.

Throughout the whole movie, Even leans over to whisper to him, things about the framing and the choice of focus and how it connects to the theme of it all, and is struck by how logical it all is at its core, at the same time as he's struck by how much he wants to lean into it when Even's shoulder touches his.

By the time they step out into the light again, he feels almost awakened. He still can't stop looking.

Even asks if he can walk him home, and Isak says yes, and as they walk towards kollektivet he studies him. There's a bracelet around his wrist, just a piece of string that Isak thinks he's worn since they met, but he can't help but look at it now, and kind of want to reach out.

He doesn't. But when they reach his front door, and Even reaches out to hug him goodbye, Isak hugs him back and stays just a little too long.

"Hey," Eskild says, when he comes up, meeting him in the hallway. "Guess who Noora has over?"

"Who?"

"Eva," Eskild says. "And it seems like there's a bit more than just friendship happening. Which is not crude, so don't attack me, I just mean that they were holding hands."

"Oh?" Isak says.

"Yeah. Looks like someone is moving on from Jonas, huh?"

Isak doesn't know why that makes his heart shift.

"Yeah, I guess," he says. "Looks like it."

*

She sleeps over and everything. 

At least Isak assumes so, because when he stumbles into the kitchen, early next morning, Eva and Noora are already sitting there, giggling together over cups of coffee.

"Morning," he says, pretending that his eyes aren't a little wide looking at them, but knowing that he's kind of failing. "Hi, Eva."

"Hey," she says, nonchalant, which is really fucking wild. Before he can say anything else, Eskild walks in.

"Noora, Noora, Noora, did you or Isak make the make this fine morning's coffee?" he asks, distracted, before he seems to notice Eva and breaks into a smirk instead. "Oh, hello. I see we've got morning company."

"Eskild," Noora interrupts him, in the tone that Isak recognises as annoyed. "Did you use my eggs?"

Eskild scoffs, and Isak uses Noora's momentary distractedness to turn to Eva with a questioning look, which Eva responds to by smiling and shrugging, like she doesn't even know what's happening either. It's weird. It's really fucking weird.

"Yo," he says, later, walking her to her tram-stop when she needs to go to work, although it means that he'll be at uni late. "What the hell is happening?"

"I don't know," she says, but she looks delighted about it. "It just sort of happened. We've always been close, you know, and then we just got to talking and flirting and then we were hanging out at your place and then suddenly she kissed me."

"What? Noora kissed you first?"

"I know." She shrugs. "I don't know. But she's really great, and _it's_ really great, so who am I to complain, really?"

"Wow. And here I thought you were still hung up on Jonas," Isak says.

"I was," she says, still grinning, and it is a bit funny, so after a moment he grins, too. "I don't even know what to tell you, man. Just- Suddenly the only person I was feeling those things about was her."

"Well," Isak says. "I guess this means we'll see more of each other. If you're going to be hanging around my flat all the time."

"I know," she says, and: "Well. We'll probably be hanging out in her room and-"

"Oh, don't." She laughs, because of course she was teasing him. "Minimum details, please, Eva."

"Alright, alright." She nudges his shoulder with her own. "Now we're just missing you."

"Yeah." Isak plays along, but really he's feeling weird, again. That same weird feeling that he felt last night, too. "I guess so."

*

UiO sometimes hosts lunch lectures that students can attend for fun, and that week there's a week-long event going on about religion.

It's organized by the Christian union, which means all the lectures are about Christianity, but somehow Sana is still interested in going. Since it's in their lunch-break anyway, and there's free sandwiches at the lecture hall, Isak finds himself joining her.

Apparently, according to Sana, who for some reason knows, Even and Mikael are going, too. 

Actually, when they arrive, Even and Mikael are already there, sitting on the second row with their food and two empty spots besides them. When they see him and Sana they both smile, and when it's time to scoot into the row, Isak does it first, so he ends up sitting besides Even, with Sana next to him.

"Hey," Even says, when he arrives, and across his shoulder: "Hi, Sana."

She nods towards him and Mikael, too. Isak follows suit.

"Yo, Sana," Mikael says, all the way across the two of them, leaning forward in his seat to catch a look at her. "Where are you going to pray this afternoon?"

"In the–" Sana says, gesturing to outside. "There's a room that some student book, you know, in the building by the cafeteria."

While she tries to explain the location of the room to Mikael, who's seemingly never been there before, Isak turns his attention to Even, who's looking at him with a smile.

"Good day?" he asks, and Isak nods. "What did you get?"

When Isak shows him his sandwich, Even gestures it closer with a wave of his hand, and raises his brows in question. Isak nods, so Even leans in to take a bite of it while Even holds it still.

It's a perfectly normal thing for Isak, to let one of the boys taste his food, but he never stops feeling like it's intimate. This feels incredibly intimate, too.

"Good pick," Even says, and it's nothing, it's nothing, but it still makes Isak smile. 

Not long after the lecturer arrives, and it's interesting, actually, all about the intersection between religion and freedom. While the lecturer speaks, Mikael, who's on the other side of Even to Isak, leans his head on Even's shoulder on a deep exhale that's almost a sigh, and then he stays there, listening. 

Isak catches Even's gaze, nodding his head towards the scene, and Even smiles, warmly, before he shrugs, too. Like maybe it's not that big of a deal.

After a moment Even leans his head on top of Mikael's, too, and somehow they've wormed their ways into Isak's life and heart enough that he looks at them and thinks them sweet. He smiles.

After a while of them sitting like that there's some commotion from their side again, as Mikael seems to try to get up, making Even lean away again, before he reaches for Even's water bottle and looks at him with raised, questioning brows. 

Even nods, and when Mikael's had a sip and handed the bottle back to him, Even turns to Isak, now, and holds it out in question. Isak shakes his head no, but notes how often Even seems to be doing things like that: offering people things and caring for them. 

In the end Even offers the water to Sana, too, who shakes her head no as well, and then he shrugs, putting the cap back on, and that could be it, Isak thinks, preparing to going back to listening but, instead, a moment later, Even is the one to lean his head on Isak's shoulder.

Oh.

At first it startles Isak a little, before it warms Isak's chest instead as he sits there, intensely aware of Even's weight pressing into his shoulder, warmth pooling in the low of his stomach, and smiles. 

After, Sana stays behind a little to chat to the lecturer, and Even and Mikael wait with him, as he stands outside and waits, commotion of students exiting the room happening all around them. Even, seemingly tired, yawns, and a moment later Isak does, too. When Even sees he snorts.

"I didn't know you were interested in religion?" he says, then, and Isak shrugs. "Or were you just there for Sana?"

"Mostly Sana," he says. "But don't tell her that."

Even snorts again, and this time Mikael joins in, too.

"I used to be Christian too, though," he adds, thinking it's casual information, but to his surprise it makes Mikael immediately perk up, straightening out as he looks at him.

"You did?" he asks, and Isak nods. "And you're out all over your social media and stuff?"

Oh. Yeah, Isak, who had trouble with reconciling his sexuality with his mum's religion, too, can see why Mikael would latch onto that. Again, he nods.

"Yeah," he says. "Sana helped me with that, actually, we had some talks and stuff."

Both Mikael and Even smile about that.

"You're not?" Isak asks then, and Mikael shakes his head. Ah.

"I thought you'd know, actually," he says. "I mean, I thought, I guess that, I don't know– That Jonas talked about it to you guys."

"No, of course not," Isak says. Jonas is a loyal guy, a kind guy, and he would never just go around airing someone else's business to them like that. "It's none of our business, is it?"

"No, but–" Mikael shrugs. "I just thought he was worried about it. He really wants to meet my parents."

"Mikael," Even says, almost immediately. "Your own time."

It's a simple enough sentence, but it's clear that there are lots of longer talks behind it. Isak smiles. 

When he first came out he did it to everyone within a week, to get it over with quickly, so he's never been in a position like Mikael's; half in and half out. It's still nice to know that he has someone who's on his side. Even, of course, but Jonas, too, who Isak can't imagine not being understanding about it. 

Of course when he was with Eva he insisted on being introduced to her mum, but Isak thinks it seems like he has some consideration for how it's different for Mikael, now. Different for the both of them really, because it's different when you're a boy bringing home another boy.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Mikael says, waving Even's words away, and Isak smiles just a little. 

When Mikael catches his gaze he rolls his eyes, nodding towards Even to make it clear that it's about him, and Isak snorts, too. 

He doesn't think he's ever felt as much solidarity with Mikael as he does then. 

"Your parents don't know about him?" he asks, then, and Mikael shakes his head.

"No," he says. "They don't even know that I'm seeing anyone."

"They like me, though," Even chimes in, and Mikael looks at him. "And they know that I- With you, you know?"

Isak understands the allusion, now.

"Yeah, but–" Mikael says. "There's a difference between not being homophobic and being okay with your own child being gay. It's easier in theory."

"Fuck that." 

It's Even who says it, and Mikael snorts, but it's sad. Isak understands. It's the same way he was with his mum: not even angry that she might not accept him, but sad and scared and worried and still, somehow, trying to care for her by reassuring her in the message that he wrote to come out. 

Just saying _fuck that_ doesn't always work. Sometimes you can't just ignore or dismiss it.

Mikael shrugs, and there's a moment, there, where he looks a little sad, too, before he squares up a little.

"He's not even Muslim, either," he says, but like it's a joke, now, with an amused smile playing on his lips. "Maybe that's what they'll freak out about. I mean, the idea of me not having an Islamic wedding ceremony? I think my mum would cry."

Now Even's smiling, too.

"I mean," he says. "I think she would have one for you anyway and intimidate anyone who dared to say a word. Can you imagine that, too, that tiny little woman?"

Mikael laughs, at that, and Isak watches it as Even watches him and smiles, overcome with a sort of warmth because it's clear to him, now, how wonderful of a friend Even really is. How much he, in the most important moments, puts himself aside and focuses on comforting the people he loves.

It's admirable, really. Isak admires him.

"And you're a guy, anyway, wouldn't you technically be allowed then?"

"I don't know, man," Mikael says. "I don't really know how it'd work." He turns back to Isak. "Anyway. I was just... wondering."

Isak, understanding, nods.

"I get it," he says. "And just– Jonas is very understanding, you know. He's loyal, he stands by people's sides, he–"

He's the kind of guy who becomes your family when your real family life goes to shit.

"Sometimes, actually, he's so stubbornly loyal that it's a little annoying," Isak goes on, not saying that, and Mikael snorts and nods, like he knows what Isak is talking about. "But if you tell him about what you're worrying about, he'll be a great listener. And a great support system, too."

Assessing him for a second, Mikael nods. Out of the corner of his eye, Isak sees Even watching him, too. 

"Hey," Even says, later, pulling him aside, and Isak looks around to notice that Mikael has already gone. Maybe Even told him to. "Are you okay?"

So he did it, then, he just did it: revealed something on the edge of just too much. Something so close to the hard, painful core of the truth, that it made Even pay notice to it.

It makes a lump rise in his throat.

"Yeah," he says.

"Those things you said about Jonas?" Even goes on. "The first time we talked about it, you said he was permanent."

"You remember?"

"I'm paying attention."

Isak believes that, because it always feels like that, to be hanging out with Even. Like Even is actually looking at him, the same way that Jonas does, that Isak sort of hates but it also sort of grateful for.

He shrugs.

"You don't have to tell me," Even says, an almost amusing copy of the thing that Isak has said to him just a week or so ago, and despite how uncomfortable it feels right now, to have that wound inside of him looked at, that makes Isak smile. "But you can, if you want to."

"My dad left."

It's such a simple sentence, yet saying it out loud makes him kind of want to throw up. It's such a simple sentence, but it's one he keeps locked down and tries not to think about, because if he did he doesn't know how he would move on.

"Okay," Even says, and Isak doesn't know why it feels so good to have it acknowledged as simply as that. "Sucks."

It's not funny, but Isak chuckles. Maybe it's a little bit funny.

"Yeah. Sucks." He breathes in, deeply. "And Jonas, he was there. And he stuck it out, so…"

"So the rest is history?"

"Yeah," Isak says, nodding as Even smiles. "So the rest is history."

*

The next time they go out, Isak is gravitating more than ever.

At first they're at a bar, just him, the guys, and Mikael, who has his fingers in Jonas's curls, while the rest of them drink their beer.

"This hair right now," he says, tugging at the end of a curl, which Jonas allows him to do without complaint. "It's wild."

"You don't like it?"

"No, it's cool," Mikael says. "It's just very, like, a very hipster-off-the-grid-anti-capitalist-dude look, you know? Like if I was to do a character design of someone like you I would make him look like you."

"What?"

At the opportunity to hear Jonas being teased, everyone has tuned into him and Mikael's conversation. Isak makes eye-contact with Mahdi, as they share an amused smile about it.

"Yeah. You look like the kind of guy who would rant like you do."

"Rant being the operative word," Mahdi says, and Jonas scoffs at him.

"What?" he says. "No. I follow through on my principles."

"Do you?" Isak asks, this time, and Mikael grins at him. "I don't know, man."

"I'm trying to be vegan," Jonas says, which is so dumb that Isak and the rest of them laugh. "Hey! I shop at thrift shops and I own a patch of rainforest and I bought a goat for a family in Nigeria once."

"Man, you're not making it better," Mahdi says, as the rest of them laugh again.

"No, but really," Jonas says, giving Mahdi a look when he groans. "I don't hate capitalism because I think that makes me cool, it's because it's genuinely horrible. No, shut up-"

He waves Magnus's groan away.

"It's true, you can't not agree. It makes us think that the value of a human lies in their ability to produce things that can create profit, and it benefits only the rich while it creates an endless cycle where the poor remain poor and is seen as so much less human that it's okay that they starve or get sick or can't afford health care."

"You're right," Mahdi says.

"And then they say that it's survival of the fittest, but did you know that in Neanderthal times they took care of their sick and disabled so much so that they've found countless instances where a burial ground contained an elderly, disabled Neanderthal, because they helped them throughout their whole lives."

" _How_ do you know that?" Isak asks.

"I've researched it, haven't I?"

"Are you going to become a Marxist scholar?" Mikael asks, and Isak found it hard to like him at first, but he does, now, enough so that he laughs and reaches over to present his hand for a high-five. Jonas groans.

"I'm really being put in my place here."

"Well, its about time," Isak says

"Okay, okay, Jesus." Jonas waves them away. "Stop ganging up on me."

"But it's so fun."

It's Mikael who says it, and Jonas turns to him, exasperated, which only makes Mikael grin, before he leans in and kisses him.

"Just kidding," he says. "I love you."

It's the first time Isak has heard any of them say that to each other. They both smile so warmly when he does, before Jonas leans in, mumbles something back in Mikael's ear that makes Mikael grin even wider. 

Isak smiles about it. He keeps smiling about it when, after the topic of conversation has changed onto something else, Mikael draws Jonas's attention back to him and speaks to him, quietly:

"I could sign us up to do some charity work with the Mosque?" he says, fingers back in Jonas's hair, and Isak is struck by how kind he is, and how nice it must be for Jonas, actually, to be with someone who takes his rambles this seriously. It makes him feel a little guilty, that him and Eva probably never really did.

"Really?" Jonas asks, and Mikael nods. "I'd like that."

They're good for each other. It's nice.

When Even, Mutta and Adam arrive and they head towards the next bar, bar-hopping for once instead of staying in the same place, Isak is already kind of tipsy.

Tipsy enough, anyway, that he rambles to Even about yellow rice and the _implication they could have on the world, if only the technology wasn't patented, Even_ , while Even has an arm slung around his shoulders as they walk and he listens.

"So capitalism is hindering positive science, is that what you're saying?" Even asks, after he's finished his rant. "You've been spending too much time with Jonas."

Isak laughs.

"That's true," he says. "Although I haven't. I've been spending all my time with you."

Even just smiles at that, wider than drunk Isak feels like the comment really deserves, but he watches it, anyway, because he could watch Even smile all day, that's how nice it looks.

"So," Adam says, at the next place, suddenly appearing behind Isak and Magnus who are standing at the bar, debating what kind of drinks to get, as Isak tries very hard to keep his wallet in mind. Once he's there, Adam slings his arms around the both of their shoulders, touching like that group always does, and Isak is drunk enough to not dislike it. "What's up boys, what are we getting? Shots? 20 for 200?"

"20?" Isak says. "We're six drinkers."

"And it's Friday, my man."

"He's right," Magnus says. "We never get hammered anymore, man, let's get hammered tonight."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Well. It has been a long time, and Isak is free tomorrow, and it would be kind of nice, really, to throw caution to the wind for once, although he'll probably feel shit tomorrow. In the end, he nods.

"Alright," he says. "Let's do it."

"You're in?"

"Yeah, I'm in."

The next time they bar-hop, out in the cold Oslo night again, he's so drunk that he's convinced himself it's a great idea to carry Even on his back which, well: works better in theory and sober than it does in reality.

"Come on," he says, to a laughing Even, who's standing behind him and holding onto his shoulders, but not jumping onto his back, like Isak told him to. "Just do it."

"Are you aware that I'm taller than you?"

"Are you aware that I'm strong? Jump, you coward."

"Okay, okay." Even is still laughing, and Jonas and Mutta have stopped nearby, waiting for them, while Mahdi, Magnus and Adam are walking a long way away, deep in some sort some of conversation. "You're so demanding, do you know that?"

"Jump."

"Okay."

Even does, and Isak manages, palms under his thighs as Even's chest presses against his back, and it occurs to him, somewhere in the back of his mind, that maybe what he's doing is trying to invent reasons to touch him.

He's not an idiot. He knows they've been flirting, and he knows that one of the reasons that he gravitates towards Even on their nights out is that he likes being flirted with, in that uncomplicated, non-committal way, but even in his drunken haze this feels like more than it has before. This feels startlingly like it did liking Jonas when that first began, realizing that he was creating a lot of scenarios for them with the intent of getting to touch Jonas's shoulder or wear his clothes or his snapback.

"See," he says, ignoring that. "It worked."

"It did. Can you move, too?"

Isak scoffs.

"Can I move?" he repeats, like it's a ridiculous question. When Even laughs again, it's right behind Isak's ear, hitting the shell of it, and oh: Isak should have thought of that before he invited him onto his back.

He only takes a few steps, before he stops again.

"There, I moved. Now get down. You're actually kind of heavy."

"Well, I am very tall," Even says, before he does scoot down, holding onto Isak's shoulders to steady himself, and groans when he lands. "There."

"Good."

They get to a bar, but the wardrobe has opened and requires payment, so they head out of there again, and begin the walk towards a new one. It's okay for Isak, anyway. He's still buzzed enough from the shots that even walking is fun.

The next bar that they make it to is one where you can dance, where the music is loud and boots big, and where Isak scoots into one before Even scoots in after him, and has to squeeze in close, thighs touching, because it's still just barely big enough to fit all of them.

The music is loud enough that you have to lean in to talk. Even leans in to talk.

"Is this your song?" he asks, nodding towards the small dance-floor where a bad rap-song is playing, and Isak frowns when he shakes his head. "No?"

"No."

"What would it take for you to get out on the dance-floor, then?"

"Oh, you can't," Isak says. "I don't dance. That's where I draw the line."

"Really?"

"Hm." Even shrugs, but there's some mischievous in his gaze, that thrills Isak just as much as it makes him frown again. "What would it take for you?"

"Nothing," Even says. "Gabrielle. Rihanna. ABBA?"

He grins about that one.

"So just anything with a beat?"

"Yeah. Dance with me?" Isak shakes his head. "Come on, Is, dance with me? Just one song. You'll like it, I promise."

It's so fucking tempting. Not the dance itself, because it's true, he doesn't really dance, but the fact that he could so easily be dancing with Even. It would mean being close, and touching him, having an excuse to touch him, his waist, his shoulders, maybe his hair, and Isak is too drunk now to worry about the insentity with which he wants that, so:

"One dance," he says, and Even grins.

It's one dance, and then two, because Even draws him in, arms around his shoulders, as Isak gets to touch his waist, and the two of them are pushed together by all the of the bodies around them, and Isak wants, he wants to-

Oh.

Isak wants to kiss him.

He's drunk so he wants to kiss him.

He doesn't. Wanting to do something, heat of the moment, and actually going ahead and doing it and dealing with the consequences, too, are two very different things, and Isak has never really been able to afford making bad decisions.

So he doesn't. But he thinks a lot about it.

At around four am the heat goes out of Mutta and Magnus, who were the last two men standing, and they head past Maccen as they gear up to go home. Isak and Even stand together in line, and Even orders for the both of them. 

When they sit down at one of the tables, stark fucking light everywhere, they do it next to each other, too, and then Isak leans his head on his forearms on the table, because he just stopped being tipsy and started being exhausted, instead. He just wants his bed, now.

While they sit, Even chats to Magnus, who's on his other side, in a quiet, indoor voice now, about something that Isak is too tired to care to listen to. Instead he eats his fries, before he eats some of Even's, too, who slaps his hand away but then offers him a few anyway.

Isak is wearing Jonas's snapback, he realizes. He didn't even notice, although he usually would have.

It's weird. He deliberately doesn't think about it.

When they reach their tram stop home, he's about done for, and he doesn't even mean to do it, but in the middle of his exhaustion, he leans over towards Even, and rests his head on his shoulder.

"Okay?" Even asks, head turned to face Isak, which means he's so close that he's almost mumbling it into Isak's forehead, lips against skin. Isak nods. "Can I help you get home? You don't look like you'll make it."

Isak scoffs, but his eyes remain closed, and that kind of ruins the effect.

"I can make it," he says.

"Mm-hm."

Even's voice sounds amused, and Isak would roll his eyes if he could, but right now he doesn't care enough.

"But you can bring me home."

"Okay."

Even does.

They take the tram first, where Isak almost falls asleep, leaning on his shoulder again, and then they walk through the cold early morning from the tram-stop to his flat, which Isak doesn't even hesitate to ask Even into. He must be fucking exhausted, too. Isak is not about to send his friend away again when he could easily offer him a place to sleep.

In the bathroom they get ready for bed together, yawning around their toothbrushes, because Isak let Even take the spare one from the last package he bought, and then they fall into Isak's bed together. Isak gives Even his good pillow, and the two of them lie across from each other, looking into each other's eyes.

Suddenly it feels very intimate. More intimate than it's ever done with any of his other friends in his bed.

"Weren't you tired?" Even whispers.

"Yeah."

"Close your eyes, then."

Isak realises that maybe he's staring. When he smiles about it, Even does, too, and he can't close his eyes on that, can he?

"Close your eyes," Even repeats, and this time the smile in it is obvious. "Come on, Isak."

Isak does. Smiling.

"There," Even says, sounding like he's smiling, too, and satisfied. Isak listens to the sounds of him, the breath and the rustling of the duvet and the quiet exhale, and keeps smiling because he feels good. Warm, and safe, and relaxed. "Night, Isak. Sweet dreams."

It's such a delicate thing to say that Isak opens his eyes again, but now Even has closed his.

He looks lovely, though, face relaxed and hair falling into it, and Isak has to reist the urge to reach out and card his fingers through it, because it looks like it'd be so nice to touch. Even's lips have fallen apart just the tiniest bit, as he breathes easily through them, like he's already half-asleep.

Isak still wants to kiss him.

He realises that with surprise, a little bit taken aback. He still wants to kiss him.

Oh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me in the comments of the last chapter @ y'all who were like wouldn't it be nice if their discoveries were synchronized: i see you, i see you. hope y'all enjoyed this!
> 
> there’s a point to the whole mikael coming out thing that will come back later that is not about homophobia but you'll see. also the lecture they attend is inspired by one i attended in real life. hope you enjoy that little snippet of behind the scenes information lol. also i realized that i've never told y'all that, should you be intrigued by the bg jokael in this, i wrote [a fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13603284) for them once that you could go and read if you should feel so inclined 
> 
> anyway. where's the mood at now? how do we feel about jonas becoming a marxist scholar? personally i headcanon him as doing social studies at uni so it's within his reach of options and everything. guess mikael will have to come up with a please-stop-ranting safe word if they're going to really do this. also, for real, kidding aside, pls let me know what you're thinking in the comments below!!


	6. EVEN ⚬ Here, hold on a minute

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see, i meant to update quickly but then i got really busy with uni and moving and seeing my friends, so. didn’t happen. let’s just pretend this last week was a totally intended half-way through hiatus, yeah? good? and then probably updates will be more frequent again
> 
> anyway, the attentive reader will have noticed the thread running through this that's about the past, which for even involves everything that happened with mikael and the kiss and the sa. we're dealing some more with that here, so beware of that before you read, and take care of yourself first and foremost! 
> 
> other than that (lol): enjoy!

So he kind of really likes Isak. Which means that he's been trying to get closer.

That's what he has to admit that morning, when he wakes up in Isak's bed, sun shining in through his curtain-less window and onto his face, his eyelashes, his cheeks.

He's beautiful. He looks exhausted still, and he smells of seven different kinds of alcohol, and as soon as he opens his eyes he'll probably be feeling quite bad, but he's beautiful lying there, with his duvet down around his waist and him, turned to his stomach, as one of his hands lies loosely curled on the pillow besides his head.

Before they went to sleep last night, he took his shirt off, so he's shirtless, too, back lying exposed to the room, warmed up by the presence of the both of them, and when he breathes his back-muscles move.

Even didn't know before that you could be attracted to someone's back, but he really kind of is. He really kind of wishes he could reach out and touch.

Instead Isak begins stirring.

Even doesn't really know how to approach this whole thing, so instead of doing anything, he closes his eyes again, as the duvet rustles with Isak's movements when it seems he wakes up. 

There's a quiet exhale of breath and then silence. Maybe Isak is watching him, too.

Even can't believe this is where he actually ended up. Pining for a new person, new boy, and having to resign himself to it. Looking, again, but not touching, and feeling that familiar fondness bloom in his chest, but for Isak, now. Just for him.

When he opens his eyes again they meet Isak's, brighter than ever in the morning light. 

There's a moment. And then they both smile.

"Morning," Even says.

"Morn-"

Isak's voice comes out all hoarse, probably from the yelling and the drinking and everything else that happened last night, and he breaks off to clear his throat. Just this alone makes Even smile.

"Morning," Isak repeats, succeeding this time. "Wow."

"You sound like you're very hungover."

"That's an understatement, I think."

Even chuckles, before he rolls onto his back, stretching, watching Isak watch it as he moves. Isak stretches, too, and Even turns back to him.

"Can I get you anything?" he asks. "Water? Tea? I can make us breakfast?"

Isak scoffs.

"You're my guest, Even," he says, in that grumpy way that overtakes his entire face and always makes Even feel inexplicably delighted. "As if I'm going to lie here while you cook us food. Eskild would never let me live it down. Just… give me a second more, or two."

After he's said it, Isak rolls back into his pillows so his face is burrowed in them, and closes his eyes again which Even, too, finds delightful. There's just something so very sweet about the whole thing.

"One..." he says, pretending to count, and Isak lifts a hand to flip him off. He laughs.

Like he said: he kind of really likes Isak.

*

Before they go to the kitchen to actually make that breakfast, Isak shows him where the bathroom is and they both have a shower, after which Isak lets him borrow some of his clothes. 

It's freshly laundered, or it smells that way, but it smells of him, too, and if Even's whole body wants to feel thrilled about that, then Even is going to let it.

In the kitchen then, they meet his roommates.

Well. They meet one of them.

"Well, hello," a tall, dressing-gown clad man, who Even figures must be Eskild, greets them when they walk in, leaning against the kitchen counter with his hands wrapped around a coffee cup as he looks Even over. "You're wearing my shirt."

"Oh," Even says. "Isak gave it to me. But thank you, I guess."

Eskild nods, seeming almost impressed, before he turns back to Isak.

"Charmer," he says.

"Eskild-"

"You know," Eskild interrupts him, back to Even now. "It's not often that Isak has gentleman callers-"

"Oh, no."

Besides him, Isak hides his face in his palms, which delights Even just as much as everything else he's done this morning. He's _embarrassed._

"Oh, hush," Eskild says to him, waving at him with a hand as if to wave the whole thing away. And then, back to Even: "Actually, you're the first one I've ever had the pleasure of meeting."

"Eskild," Isak says, impossibly more grumpy now. "This is Even. My _friend_." 

Oh, right.

"Jonas's boyfriend's best friend, remember? I've mentioned him."

"You've mentioned me?"

"Oh, my God."

Even chuckles, amused by how flustered all of this is making Isak look. 

"Just kidding," he says, chuckling again when Isak rolls his eyes. When he turns back to Eskild, Eskild is watching him like he's studying him. "He's right, though, I'm just Even. Hi."

Eskild shakes his outstretched hand, but keeps up the assessing gaze.

"Hello."

"Eskild," Isak says, grumpy tone again. "Do you need to be in the kitchen right now? Don't you have something to do?"

"Like what, baby Jesus?"

"Like, I don't know. Buying a longer dressing gown?"

Eskild sighs, and Even smiles, finding himself taking a liking to Eskild already.

"It's fashion, Isak, you wouldn't understand." Despite his protests, Eskild gets off the counter, and moves towards the kitchen doorway, too. "Although I do understand why you'd want to be alone with this handsome boy, here. Stealing him all to yourself and everything."

"Okay," Isak says, waving Eskild out of the door and definitely, definitely not meeting Even's gaze. Even bites his lip to contain his smile. "Bye, Eskild."

"Grumpy," Eskild mumbles, but still leaves, and when Isak turns to face Even again, he's shaking his head.

"Eskild," he says, gesturing towards the doorway that Eskild just left from. "And yeah, that's every morning with him."

"He's great," Even says, and Isak frowns, sceptical, before he shrugs, too. "You've lived here for a while?"

"Uh-" That pause, like this matters. "Yeah. I moved in when I was sixteen."

Oh, yeah. The dad who left.

It makes Even so sad, and so angry, too, that the world has dared to be cruel to Isak like that. 

_Sixteen._ It's so young. When he was sixteen he hadn't even had an episode yet, but was having a great time meeting the Bakka boys for the first time and being in love with Sonja, worrying only about stuff like how to hide his smoking from his parents and stop Sonja from being annoyed about it.

Isak, though. Isak was dealing with tragedy already.

"Um-" Isak says, going on of his own accord. "Eskild was the one who took me in, so… that whole thing-"

He gestures towards the place where Eskild stood just before.

"He's family."

Even smiles. 

Family. He thinks he gets that, although his own has always been supportive of him. Family are the people who you can be grumpy at and have fights with and know that, at the end of the day, they'll still be having your back.

"And the shirt, it's... he gave me a lot of his clothes, because I sort of came with nothing."

It's given so carefully. By now Even knows Isak well enough to know that he doesn't share things easily, and that being offered a piece of information like this is an honour and a gift and places you as someone who's special. 

Even isn't sure he's worthy of something like that, but he wants to be.

"Thanks for letting me borrow it," he says. "The shirt, I mean."

For a second Isak just watches him, before a smile spreads across his face, like maybe that was close to the right thing to say.

"You're welcome," he says. Sincere. 

After, they make breakfast. 

Well. Even makes them breakfast, eggs and toast, and when Isak goes into the fridge to fish out the ingredients they need, Even touches him, palms on his waist, warm, warm, warm, to make him move aside but really just to touch. Really just an excuse.

Isak touches his hand to the hand that's touching him, and Even will be spending the rest of the morning thinking about how his fingers felt.

He doesn't know how he got in so deep so quickly, but here he is. Lovesick and pining and wanting to spend all his time with someone who's into someone else again.

Once he gets to work, gathering himself enough to take a break from the pining, Isak hops onto the counter, white t-shirt and sweatpants and hair in disarray, skin under his eyes still puffy with sleep as he sips at a cup of coffee and watches Even work. Only when he fishes out the sour-cream, does Isak wake up enough to protest.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Secret recipe, you'll like it. Here, hold on a moment."

Going back to the pan, Even works at the eggs for a few moments more, before they're done enough that he can take some of them on a spoon and present it for Isak to taste. 

Isak glances at him first for a moment, before he reaches out to hold onto his wrist as if to steady it, and leans in. Even, however, is only really paying attention to the place where they're touching, now. He keeps only paying attention to that, until Isak lets him go.

"Hm?" he manages to ask.

Wiping the corner of his mouth, Isak nods.

"Yeah," he says. "Good."

"Told you," Even says, but to the pan which he's turned back to, trying not to let Isak see how affected by all of this he is.

Like he said: deep and quick.

In the end, before they have time to actually eat the eggs, Isak's other roommate enters, and with her another girl.

"Morning," the blonde-haired one who Even has seen at the Bakkoush house says, and then, seeing him: "Oh."

"No, this is Even," Isak says, because apparently every thinks it likely for him to be a hook-up of some sort, which Even doesn't know what to think about. "Even, this is Noora, my roommate, and Eva, uh- Our friend?"

He says it like it's a question, looking in Eva's direction, but when Even looks at Eva, she's looking at him.

"You're Mikael's best friend?"

"Yeah."

"We went to Nissen together," Isak continues. "With Sana, too. And Eva's, uh-"

"Jonas's ex."

"Yeah, that."

"And dating Noora," Eva says, slinging her arm around Noora's shoulders, which Noora smiles about. "That's my whole life story."

"Great," Even says. "Well, hi."

They all shake hands.

"Good to meet you."

While they gather the food onto plates, Eva jumps up onto the counter where Isak was sitting just before, as Noora pulls some eggs out of the fridge, too. Just before they leave the doorway and say goodbye, too, Eva pulls Noora into a kiss.

Even meets Isak's gaze, and smiles with him about it.

"I think I'm going to tell Mikael that we've gotten involved with two weird groups who can only date each other," he says, when they're back in Isak's room, alone, and Isak has closed the door behind them. "It's very close-knit."

Isak snorts.

"I know," he says. "Believe it or not but Eva was actually agonising about that, around the time that we all met."

"Really?"

"Yeah. She was agonising about Jonas, too, still pining for him and everything, but then Noora swooped in, I guess, and now-" He gestures in the direction of the kitchen. "Whatever that is."

"They look happy."

"Yeah." Isak smiles to himself, wide, and Even remembers how much he likes that he's kind. "Yeah, they do."

After they've eaten, they pull up Isak's laptop to watch a movie, against the headboard of Isak's bed, and Even deliberately suggests one that he's not actually too bothered with making Isak see, because at this point he's yawning quite a lot again.

In the end, they barely reach the ten-minute mark before Isak is fast asleep, breathing heavily against Even's shoulder.

Feeling himself fill up with a sort of warm fondness for him, Even smiles and reaches out to remove the laptop from Isak's lap. The moment it's gone Isak sighs in his sleep and turns to his side, curling himself around Even.

Even's heart gets stuck in his chest.

He doesn't know if telling Isak about these new-found feelings of his would be a good thing, or an absolute disaster. Isak trusts him, after all, with sleep, and his place, and little hints about his past, and everything with Jonas–

Jonas. There's that, too. The fact that Isak said he was pining for him, and that in Even's fantasy they could move on together, but in reality he might end up getting his heart broken because of another boy yet again, because Isak said he was in love with somebody else. 

But Isak is here, right now. With him. And for now that's enough, too, so instead of putting the movie back on, Even lifts his arm from under Isak and puts it around his shoulders instead, so he's holding Isak close against his chest.

A few minutes later, he's sleeping, too.

*

In the following weeks, he gravitates more than ever.

It might go wrong, he's aware of that. But he's always been one for self-destruction anyway, so as long as it's only his heart that might end up being broken, he can't see why this isn't something he should throw himself into. 

In the end, he's gravitates so much that suddenly it feels like they're Isak & Even more than they're Isak and Even, knit together as a pair more than they're two separate entities. 

It means that they spend more and more of their time together. Evenings, and afternoons, and lunches, which is how he finds himself standing in the cafeteria, picking out a sandwich, next to Magnus, who he's been growing closer to, as well, while Isak, Isak's friends and Mikael are waiting at a table nearby.

Magnus is spending a lot of time looking back at the others.

"So, who is it?" Even asks, trying not to smirk but to play it cool instead, as he pretends to keep debating between vegetarian and ham and cheese, because he knows that sometimes these things are easier if you don't have to look anyone in the eye.

"Huh?"

"At the table? That you keep looking at?"

"You can tell?" Magnus asks, sounding more fascinated than panicked, which Even smiles about. "It's obvious?"

"Well, I can't tell so much that I can tell who it is."

"It's Mahdi."

"Oh." Even is fascinated by that, looking back to the table where Mahdi and Isak are chatting together about something, while Mikael and Jonas are whispering together, seemingly off in their own little world. When Isak says something that looks grumpy, Mahdi says something back with a smile, and Isak does that giggly-laugh that Even can't hear from here, but can hear in his memory instead. "I see."

"You see how really fucking inconvenient it is? Because it's really fucking inconvenient." Even snorts. "How do you broach the subject of being into one of your closest friends? Who might, by the way, not even like you?"

Even's gaze shifts from Mahdi to Isak instead.

"I don't know," he says, turning back to Magnus to shrug. "But you'll figure out."

"You think so?"

"Sure. And when you do, let me know."

"Alright," Magnus says.

When they go back to the table, he sits down next to Mahdi, who turns to him immediately, looking at what he's got. As Even settles next to Isak, he catches Magnus's eye and smiles at him about it. 

"Fuck, that was a difficult choice, huh?" Isak says, making Even return his attention back to him. "I think you could get into the Guinness Book of World Records for slowest sandwich picking."

"Oh, really? You think so?"

Isak rolls his eyes.

"I put sugar in your tea," he says. "While it was actually warm."

"Okay, sir pointed tone," Even says, and Isak snorts. "Give it, then."

When Isak does he takes a sip, and by this point he's stopped paying attention to everything else entirely, focusing solely on this instead. 

"Is it good?" Isak asks.

"Yeah. You want to taste?" He holds out the cup for Isak, who asseses it for a second before he nods. Even hands it to him, watching his face for his reaction, before he watches the way Isak holds the cup, too, cradling it in his hands in the weirdest and most endearing way. "Good?"

"Warm."

"Really? How strange."

"Shut up."

Even laughs, delighted, and when Isak smiles back at him there's almost a blush on his cheeks. Across the table Mikael and Jonas are sitting rather close, but when Isak glances up to watch it he just smiles, and turns back to Even again, and maybe, Even thinks. Maybe something is happening here.

"Are you sharing some of those biscuits?" he asks, nodding towards the pack that Isak bought earlier, instead of saying any of that.

"Well, yeah, Even," Isak says, saying his name in that delightful faux-annoyed way of his. "I didn't buy fucking Bastogne biscuits for myself, now did I?"

"You didn't?"

He's so great.

"No."

"Well hand me one, then."

"Here." Isak does, and then he watches Even take a bite of it, too, sceptical frown between his brows. When Even holds the rest of it out, offering it to him, he rolls his eyes. "You have the weirdest fucking taste."

"They're good."

"No, they're not."

Even smiles at that, too.

"Do you know that you can't hold glasses properly, by the way?" he asks then, and delights in it when Isak scoffs.

"Shut up."

"No, you do." He says it with laughter in his voice, because Isak is laughing, too. "You can't hold beer-cans, either."

"Shut up."

They both giggle together, and Isak leans in, face hidden in his hands, and nudges his forehead against Even's shoulder. Gravitating, too.

There's a tiny, tiny part of Even that wonders if maybe Isak likes him back.

He flirts back, anyway, and he suggests they hang out often, and he teases Even, and buys things for him, and sits next to him, always, and leans into it, too, when Even reaches out to touch.

He doesn't want to get his hopes up, but maybe they could happen. There's at least a tiny chance.

He's deliberately trying to ignore how that scares him as much as it thrills him, too. He's at least deliberately trying to.

"Dude," Mikael says, later, looking amused, when Even turns back to him after watching Isak and the boys leave. "What's happening with you?"

Nothing gets past him, apparently. 

Even meets his gaze, shrugs and smiles, and when Mikael raises his brows, he slings an arm around his shoulders, too.

"Told you that you'd like him, didn't I?" Mikael says, from beneath his arm, and for a moment, right there in the courtyard with Mikael by his side, and Isak on his horizon, it feels like there's a chance that everything could be okay. Could be easy, too.

"Yeah," he says. "You did."

*

Not longer after, everyone starts being tired a lot, which means it's that time of year again: Ramadan.

They start meeting up at sun-set all the time, which means that it becomes more and more frequent that their flat is not just occupied with Mutta and Adam throughout the night, but Elias, Yousef, and Mikael, too. 

At night when they all pray, they do it in the living room together, and there's something about the flat being transformed into a space of religion that makes Even look at it differently. Like suddenly it holds a peaceful weight, that it didn't do before.

At lectures Mikael is tired, because he gets up early in the morning to eat, and because he's running on almost nothing all day. 

He's happy, though. He's always had this glow about him, this time of year, because he loves his faith, Even knows, and it helps him reconnects with it. 

Yousef is the only one other than him who's not fasting like the rest of them, because he doesn't believe anymore, either, so they spend a lot of their evenings together, eating dinner just the two of them while the rest of them hang out in the living room and wait for the sun to go down.

One of those evenings Yousef is texting Sana, and Even is leaning in over his shoulder to follow what's happening when Yousef laughs. 

Yousef angles his phone to show him, and when he sees her message, _I'm so unimpressed I'm almost impressed_ , he laughs along, too. 

It's great, how much she teases him. He could definitely do with that.

"You know, Mikael and Jonas always say that to each other, too," he comments. "Maybe it's a sign of a true love."

Yousef snorts.

"Yeah," he says. "You have to be right in that space where an outsider wouldn't be able to tell if you love or hate each other."

"Sana loves you," Even says, a little bit to make sure that he knows how obvious that actually is, but also just to see the way it makes him grin and blush, all shy like a school-boy, which is so fucking funny, considering how serious and responsible he can otherwise be. Even smiles, watching it. "And you clearly love her."

"Are you teasing me?"

"Never."

When their eyes meet, Yousef smiles.

"It's weird, Ramadan," he says, then, suddenly a little serious again. "Sometimes I think she's my soulmate, and then sometimes religion comes up like this, and I worry that it doesn't matter that I love her more than anything, because we're too different in exactly the place where it matters the most."

Even has no idea what he's supposed to say to that. 

It's not like he has an answer, and it's not like he hasn't been there, either, because he has, with Mikael. Only it wasn't so much religion that tore them apart, but the thing that happened between them, that scarred the both of them so much that it didn't matter what they felt; they would always be separated by that.

As much as Even likes Isak, he can just see it playing out like that for the two of them, too. 

Not with the same thing, but with something else. The fact that they met and bonded because of feelings they had for other people, or the fact that Isak took a long time to warm up to him, and he's bad at being careful, or the fact that he's still the exact same person he was before, with Mikael, too: the kind of person who fits tragedy like it was made for him. 

Yousef isn't him, though. Yousef is someone who can love right, and who love can work out for, and Even is pretty certain that he and Sana are going to be alright. So:

"This is probably the only place where my advice is completely useless," he says, and Yousef chuckles. "But I do know that Sana is a very steadfast, loyal person, who considers her choices in great depth, so I feel like she was probably pretty serious when she chose you. You know she doesn't take dating lightly, but she's doing it with you. As far as I know that's a pretty good sign."

When Yousef smiles it's slow-dawning, but then it's wide.

"What was that thing about your advice being useless?"

Even chuckles out a soft breath, and Yousef smiles, too, nudging his shoulder with his own.

"It's all that therapy I never went to, man, despite the doctor's orders."

It's not all of them he could joke with like this, and he definitely couldn't always joke with Yousef. Actually, back in the beginning, Yousef was probably the one he could joke with the least, maybe only surpassed by Mikael, but since it was festering between them that way, and since Yousef is a thoughtful guy, they've tried to work it out. 

All of that means is that Even can make a joke like that, and expect Yousef to laugh. 

He does. 

"Oh, yeah," he says. "You got your money's worth out of that."

"I know, I know." They both smile. "I guess it paid off."

"Yeah," Yousef says. "I guess it did."

*

It's not all that easy.

It's true, what Even said, that he sees himself from the outside. It's the movie person in him, probably, who makes it turn out that way. Makes him frame every moment, and makes him hyper-aware of himself. _This is the turning point part of my story,_ or _this is the worst moment._

He thought about it with Sonja a lot, towards the end, too. How maybe in her story it's him who's the villain, or maybe in her story he's the trauma some other boy saves her from. 

Other times he hopes that she can remember the first parts, and think of him as the shy, sweet boy who she loved first, many summers ago.

His story is another thing entirely. 

Flash cut from his smile at Yousef to Mikael and him in the kitchen alone, one of those Ramadan evenings, and Mikael tugging at a piece of string while Even tries to do the reading for a lecture the day after tomorrow. Tries, being the operative word.

In the end, Mikael's fiddling makes him unable to concentrate, and he closes his book, loud enough to attract Mikael's attention, and glances up at him.

Their eyes meet. Mikael looks hesitant, worrying his bottom lip, but then:

"Did I tell you I talked to Jonas?" he says, like that's what he's been thinking about for all this time, and Even has to fight not to immediately square his jaw. "About everything that happened?"

"No, you didn't."

"Well." Once again Mikael picks at the string of his jeans, and Even wants equally to reach out and stop his hand because it's annoying, and to reach out and stop his hand because he hates to see Mikael biting his words like this; something which he rarely ever did before, but often does now. "I did. I just thought you should know."

"Okay."

"Okay."

None of them say anything else. Even turns back to his book, but looks only at the front of it, not even really reading the title. Just needing someplace else to look.

It's horrible, this: the thick silence that sometimes settles between them, when the past is brought up and none of them are angry, but both of them are sad. 

Even doesn't know how to apologize in the way he needs, or how to let it go.

"It's the anniversary soon," Mikael says, a quiet, quiet whisper, and Even closes his eyes.

"I know, he says."

He keeps track of it, too. It haunts him, after all. The rumors. His head. His reluctance whenever he considers that him and Isak might like each other at the same time.

Mikael reaches out across the table, and takes his hand.

This.

Even is sure of it, now. That if he'd done it right, it would be him by Mikael's side, kissing him and holding his hand. It would be him who'd helped him come out to himself, and him who'd make him smile and blush and laugh, kicking at his foot under the table.

That's not what happened. This is what happened instead:

The main character must die. Otherwise the love story isn't epic.

He kind of wants to cry. They were both so young when it happened, and Even was so sad, and Mikael was so goddamn innocent, too. 

Even is older, and back then Mikael was so open and so joyful, and back then Mikael admired him and his work and his charm and always gravitated towards him, which was good and wonderful until all of Even's pain started entering the scene, too.

He still doesn’t always know how to stop that impulse towards self-destuction. 

There’s a part of him that thinks that he likes tragedies because he has to, and because they’re all he can hope for, and because that's just how life will turn out for him, and he has to find a way to be okay with that. 

There’s another part of him that knows that he’s morbidly fascinated by them, too. The idea that everything will crash in a way that’s beautiful. _Meloncholia_. The shattering of the earth. 

Sometimes he craves it. 

Not really, of course. But it’s easier, sometimes, to imagine giving into the part of him that wants to line up the pieces of his life like dominos and set fire to them as they tumble. The part of him that wanted to kiss his best friend, although he still had a girlfriend, just to watch the world burn because he couldn't stand to pretend to be normal or functioning anymore. 

The destruction is relief, too. It’s the trying to be okay and resisting it that’s hard. 

"I'm sorry," he says, because he's always apologizing, especially to Mikael, even when he wants to be angry instead, and because he he still has those feelings sometimes. Because he can't actually promise that it won't happen again.

Mikael just shrugs.

When it's prayer time later that evening, Even finds Yousef in the kitchen, expression apparently showing exactly how bleak he feels, because it only takes a glance at him for Yousef to straighten out his back and to wear that kind look he sometimes wears with kids, too, that Even is trying really hard not to resent. 

He never meant to make Yousef a part of this whole thing, but he accidentally did. 

They're the two most devoted believers, him and Mikael, or at least they were when Yousef was still praying. When manic Even was searching for somewhere to go to deal with his panic about faith, it was with him he ended up.

That's probably why Yousef takes it upon himself to do this: be the mediator between his and Mikael's seemingly never-ending conflict over it.

"It's the anniversary soon," he says, and Yousef, immediately, looks like he understands. "Will you, just– Look out for a Mikael a bit?"

"Yeah, of course," Yousef says, steady as he nods. "I'll keep an eye on him."

"Thank you."

"What about you, though?"

He always asks. Even always shrugs. 

Usually he tries not to think too much about himself. There's too much to unpack the moment he does, and it's easier, he thinks, to push it all down like it didn't really happen, and hope that it will be a while before someone – Mikael, Sonja, rumors – decides to bring it up again.

"I'll survive," he says, a joke that he doesn't really manage to deliver as a joke, and Yousef doesn't laugh, either. Just reaches out to squeeze his shoulder.

It’s how it works for him: brightness, brightness, brightness, crash, everything that comes up comes down. 

He likes Isak so much. He feels safe with Isak, wants to kiss Isak, wants to _be_ with Isak. And Isak might actually like him back, too. 

Which is scary. Because it makes the whole thing into a possible reality that Even doesn't know how to deal with. 

He wishes so badly that it could just be easy. That he could fall in love, quietly and joyfully, and that it could be easy, exactly like it has been up until now.

Yousef lets go of his shoulder, and he's reminded of everything again. There's so much against them.

He wishes it could be easy, but it's not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo this is a ten-chapter fic so we need some conflict, but also the conflict is meant to serve the theme. you're clever, you get it, you'll see
> 
> are you into it, though? are you excited that we're back? how do you feel about the subplots? the beginning-of-chapter pining? this interpretation of even's past? some of you know that i wrote an even s4 thing as my first fic, and i've literally not stopped being obsessed with mikael and even's relationship to each other and the thing that happened since then, so this is basically just me wanting to dive properly into that
> 
> as always, i'm so into hearing your thoughts in the comments, so please, go ahead


	7. ISAK ⚬ I agree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! i told you we'd be back pretty regularly again, didn't i? hope you're ready for a sunday update! 
> 
> but, uh... before you start reading i should probably tell you that i was surprised by how sad this chapter was when i read it back to edit it asdfghj so maybe have something joyful lined up to read after? perhaps my 5k canon cabin fluff fic? or something, anyway. it might be needed
> 
> on that enticing note lol, i hope you enjoy!

Isak still wants to kiss him. 

It wasn't, then, just a momentary impulse, born from the moment and the alcohol and the closeness. It was real. 

And Isak is still feeling it.

He's been spending so much of his life lying, or trying to ignore his feelings, or prioritizing someone else's first, that he's bad at recognizing them now before they're too strong or it's too late. 

That's what he tells himself, anyway, when he tries to come up with an explanation for why it's going like this: him, liking someone, and realising it started long before he noticed, in a casual, seemingly unimportant moment, before it grew and grew until it grew so strong not even he could miss it.

Of course it wasn't like that with Jonas. Back then he was still open enough to see it, although he was scared enough to try and hide it, too. 

Either way, it's there now: him looking at Even's lips, wanting to lean in and kiss them. 

They're closer now, actually. So close that they have plans to hang out together one afternoon, which means that Isak is standing at the front entrance next to Sana, having somehow convinced her to wait with him.

While they lean against the building, he's telling her about Eskild's new obsession with incense, and by the time Even walks up to them, hair soft instead of done up today, they're both laughing about it.

"Wow," Even says, when he reaches them. "Something here must be hilarious. What's up?"

"Eskild," Isak says.

"Ah."

"You've met him?" Sana asks, looking between them, and Even nods.

"Yeah," he says. "A few weeks ago. Anyway, sorry, I forgot to say hi." Leaning in, he kisses Sana's cheek. "Are you good?"

"Decent." 

"Great."

He nods, before he turns to Isak, smile spreading across his face, and leans in, once again, to kiss Isak's cheek this time.

Well. 

Isak looks at his feet, hoping his blush isn't too obvious. Besides him, Even chuckles softly.

"And hi to you. Are you good?"

"Mm-hm."

"Anyway," Sana says, interrupting them, and maybe she's just impatient with his blushing, but he thanks her internally for the save anyway. "I was just keeping Isabelle here company, I kind of need to go, so I'll leave the two of you be again. Be good. Isak, do your readings."

He scoffs.

"When have I ever not done my readings?"

"Bye," she says, instead of replying, already leaving and showing him her back as she walks away. When Isak turns back to Even, they share a shrug about it.

"Hey," he says, again.

"Hi."

They both smile.

*

It's not like they're going to do anything special. Their plan for the afternoon is simply to hang out in Even's room, watching a few new episodes of the series they started together, maybe getting some pizza with the rest of the boys, playing some FIFA, who knows.

Even is a little quiet though.

Usually he comments on everything, the framing and music and dialogue, and when he's not commenting he's laughing, or talking over the show to tell Isak something about his day. 

Today, however, he just watches, hoodie on like maybe he's cold, and eyes looking like they're close to dropping.

Isak is worried about him.

"Any reason why your hair's not done up today?" he asks, maybe revealing a little too much by revealing that he's noticed. At the same time, it would be difficult not to. "Tired?"

"Hm?"

Even focuses back on him, slowly. It's like he was far off in another world, and Isak's heart clenches at the gentle confusion on his face. The sort of vulnerability that makes him want to touch Even's hair, or maybe run his fingers through it.

He's known he still wants to kiss Even for a while now. That's not a surprising feeling.

"Oh," Even says, seemingly caught up again. "Yeah, I'm a little tired. Didn't sleep that well."

Isak knows something about that. Nights of tossing and turning, thoughts going a mile a minute, or brain being too quiet for him to manage to sleep.

He wonders if Even is okay. Wonders, although maybe he shouldn't, if Even is getting sick.

"Are you alright?" he asks, and Even shrugs before he nods.

"Yeah," he says. "Just tired."

It's not the whole story, or at least it seems like it isn't. Isak doesn't know if asking would be pressing too much, and certainly doesn't want to press. In the end he doesn't go on. Just nods instead.

"Okay."

He doesn't stop paying attention. After all, it's what he does.

The first one he did it with, probably, was his mother. It's just that even when Isak was younger, he couldn't always count on his dad to step in and care for her. It was always like that then: Isak took care of people, or no one did. And no one deserves no one. So Isak always offers himself.

Maybe it's taught him that that's the only place where he's valuable, or maybe the thing he hated the most about his dad was his apathy, but something in all of that has made sure that Isak values being kind; values observing people and caring for them.

Maybe he's better at attending other's emotional needs than his own.

"You could sleep," he says. "If you're tired."

"You want me to sleep while I have you over?" Even asks. "Really? _Hey, let's do something together, like me falling asleep on you._ "

Isak snorts.

"Okay, I'm sorry. Didn't realise you were Emma Gad about etiquette," he says.

"You're teasing me."

"Weren't we watching this show?"

It makes Even chuckle, just like Isak hoped it would, before it makes him settle back against his pillows, too, arms folded in front of his chest as if he's mock-offended, but their shoulders touching, too.

It only takes ten or so minutes for him to be asleep, head on Isak's shoulder as he breathes softly through it.

Isak likes him so much. 

Likes him, actually, with a sort of devotion that he approaches a lot of things with - studying, friendships, and on good days himself, but always because he's playing catch-up and trying to make up for neglect - but hasn't really felt for one single person quite as intensely as this.

Maybe he's never been around who makes it as easy as this before, but also needs it, too. Who's easy to fall into liking with, and reacts to kindness so much like it's a gift he's been wishing for forever and is desperately thankful to receive.

The whole thing kind of makes Isak want to cry. And they've been getting closer for a while, even while he's been wanting to kiss Even, but this is the first time he's really understood how deep it goes.

It makes something inside his chest stutter a little.

While Even sleeps, he closes the laptop and puts it aside, before he unfolds a blanket from the end of Even's bed, and spreads it out across him, not wanting to overheat him with his duvet and his clothes and also not being able to tug it out from underneath them.

Then he watches him.

Watches him, actually, with his guard down for the first time. Watches him and lets himself imagine moving in closer, slotting himself in-between Even's arms and his chest, soaking up warmth and comfort from him.

Let's himself imagine letting himself have something like this.

He wants it. He thinks maybe he could have it, because it seems like it's a possibility that Even likes him, too. Just look at the way he smiles whenever he makes Isak blush, or the way they're spending all their time together, now.

So he wants it. But he's resisting it, too. He's fighting against the urge to pack up and run away because this is so fucking scary and it requires him to let go of every coping mechanism he's ever built. To put the shield down that he's carrying around everywhere he goes.

He doesn't know yet if he can do it. But he can be here, quietly, and watch Even sleep. He can tug the blanket up around his shoulders, and listen to him breathe, and he does.

For now it's enough.

*

In the end he lies there for an hour or so, before someone else comes home.

He doesn't see it but hears it, the key turning in the lock and the door opening, the footsteps across the hallway, front door right outside Even's room, and the rustling of some clothes, probably a jacket.

Then a knock on the door.

"Dude, are you home?" Mutta's voice. "No?"

Instead of calling out to him, Isak goes to the door. Opens it to see Mutta and Adam both.

"Oh, hey." Mutta glances behind him, as if trying to look around him and into the room. "What's up? Where's Even?"

"He's sleeping."

Mutta snorts and, seemingly satisfied with that explanation, turns around to hang his jacket up, while Adam keeps looking at him.

"He's sleeping, really?" he asks. "Guess that means welcome to the club of friends he feels like he can be rude to."

"Guess so," Isak says. "Although he was very adamant to not fall asleep."

"You're saying he was very adamant to not do what he's doing right now?"

Isak nods.

"What an idiot." It's Mutta, and he says it with such fondness. "Sounds like him, though. Do you want anything while he's bailing on you? Tea, food?"

"No, it's fine."

"I'll make you some tea," Mutta presses. "Well, I'll make the rest of us some tea and maybe you can have some of it, how about that, huh? Moroccan and everything."

"Doesn't seem like I'll be able to stop you."

"Correct," Mutta says, smiling, now. "You catch on quick, I like you."

Isak smiles, and five minutes later he's finding himself in the kitchen of Even's flat without Even, watching Mutta make them a pot of tea, somewhat haphazardly throwing the whole thing together, where Isak would be a lot more meticulous.

Maybe it's really fucking rude to ask someone else instead of Even, but it's not like he's going to go digging. He just wants to make sure he's fine. So:

"The sleep thing?" he asks, and Mutta hums out a sound, maybe to show that he's listening. "Is that like-?" Not a good wording. "Do you think he's okay?"

A little bit to his surprise, Mutta shrugs.

"I don't know," he says. "He's sort of- He likes people, yeah? But when it's bad he sort of pulls away. Isolates himself, deals with it alone, thinks he's, I don't know- proving something or being burdensome if he asks for help or something else stupid."

He shrugs, again. Instead of him going on, Adam does:

"Usually we just wait it out. Get as close as we can get without him telling us to piss off." Isak snorts. "And then we comfort Mikael while he distresses about the waiting. You'll learn."

Maybe he really will.

"Okay."

"I think he's fine right now, though," Mutta says. "But anyway-"

He turns around to face Isak.

"I can't let you be our guest and just watch him sleep. Polite Moroccan upbringing, it would pain both me and my mum. We should do something. You too, Adam."

"I'm in on anything," Adam says. "Isak?"

So apparently Isak is going to be hanging out with Even's friends alone. 

Well.

A few hours or so later, then, he's sitting on their couch, playing FIFA, when Even, with messy hair and sleep-pink cheeks and in sweatpants, too, steps into the room, wiping his eye like he's digging the sleep out of it.

"Oh," he says, eyes landing on Isak, widening for a second before he smiles. "You're still here."

"Thanks to us," Adam says. "You're the epitome of a good host."

"Shut up," Even says, but when Mutta pats the spot on the couch besides himself, he goes, too, and goes when Mutta pulls him into a messy embrace, as well, and Isak is glad that he has people around him who care for him like this. Then, to Isak: "Sorry."

"It's okay."

"Yeah, don't worry, we've entertained him," Mutta says. "Isak can now swear in both Moroccan and Bosnian."

Even raises his brows, looking around Mutta to catch Isak's eye.

"That's true?" he says, and Isak nods.

"Yeah."

"When has Mutta ever lied, bro?" Adam chimes in. "I think you need to show the two of us a little more confidence."

"Oh, you do, do you?"

"Yeah."

Even shakes his head, but he's smiling now, too.

When they go back to the game, a little later, Even keeps his arm around Mutta, but stretches it out far enough that his hand lands on Isak's shoulder, and even though Adam has an arm on the couch behind Isak, too, when it's not his turn to play, the hand feels much more intimate.

When it's time for Isak to go home, Even walks him down to the stairs to the front door, only in socks and sweatpants, where he stays in the open doorway to say goodbye.

"It was nice having you here today," he says, and there's something so vulnerably sincere about the way he says it that Isak almost goes a little breathless, fingers aching to reach out and brush the hair off his forehead. There's something about Even, so much softer and quieter than usual, that trips Isak up. "I mean, even though I slept through most of it."

"Well, I'm a good pillow."

There's that impossibly warm smile again.

"You are."

He says it so gently. Isak smiles, too.

When they've said goodbye, and the door closes between them, Even stays on the other side, visible through the glass window in it. He's still smiling, tilting his head, and Isak is smiling, too. 

Then Even puts his palm to the glass.

It's achingly sweet. It makes Isak want to cry again.

Surely it means that Even likes him, too, which means it’s a little bit scary.

It's with resolution, then, when Isak takes a step closer again, and puts his own hand, naked too, to the place where Even's is, but on the other side of the glass. Almost touching but not quite. Like a metaphor, maybe, from one of Even's movies.

Even smiles again, head slanted to the side, before he drags his hand away. Isak follows.

"Bye," Even mouths.

"Bye."

When Isak does the walk home, it's like something in the world has shifted, and it's lovely, it's so lovely. But it's also shaken the earth beneath his feet, and Isak is used to having his feet solidly planted in it.

When he gets home, the girls are over to visit Noora, sitting in the kitchen and chatting loudly enough that Isak can hear them even as he toes his shoes off in the hallway and hangs his jacket up. He hears Eva's voice saying something like _now we're just missing you_ and a moment of giggles before Vilde speaks.

"No," she says. "With everything going on in my life? I don't think I'm ready for that."

Isak goes into his room, and closes the door behind him.

*

"Yo," Jonas says, a few days later, nudging his shoulder while they're standing in line to pay at the canteen during lunch. "Want to hang out later? It's been a while since we've done something just the two of us."

So there it is again, then. That thing he always did when they were younger, too: singling Isak out and going to great lengths to be a friend to him specifically. It reminds Isak why he was so caught up on him for so long.

"Has it really?" he says, though, because they're different, now. They're different and that scares him, too.

"Hasn't it?" Jonas asks. "Anyway, let's do something, man. Kebab and skate park?"

"You do know I still can't skateboard, right?"

"Details, details," Jonas says, waving it away. "Come on?"

"Okay, okay. When did I become so cool that you're practically begging for my company? I mean, I've always been awesome, of course-"

Jonas scoffs.

"What?"

"Oh, yeah, you were so awesome when you were fourteen and pop and super into going for milkshakes at the mall with your girlfriend you pretended to like. That was a great look on you."

"Shut up," Isak says, but it comes out with a chuckle, and when he shoves at Jonas's shoulder he remembers how he used to do that all the time as an excuse to have a hand on his skin, warm and soft, if only for a second.

It's so fucking strange to think of leaving that behind.

He was probably around fourteen, when he first fell for Jonas. It's been with him ever since, and it might have ached from time to time, but it felt safe, too. It was never going to happen, so Isak could explore all those feelings with the knowledge that he would never actually have to face the reality of them.

Even is the reality. Even could actually happen, because Even might like him back, and suddenly Isak's feelings aren't contained behind a safe shield anymore, but so close to being out in the world and vulnerable.

Isak doesn't like change, especially when it comes to his feelings. Anything that makes him feel like he's on shaky ground he hates, because anything that's not within his control is fucking terrifying. It makes him panic and overthink and get less sleep, and he wishes it could be easy but he doesn't think it is. 

He can't just stop being in love with Jonas.

It scares him to think that he could, because moving on from him is moving on from the only excuse he has to keep himself off the market and keep himself safe. So much of his life is about trying to be safe.

In the end they do go for kebabs, him and Jonas, and as they walk through the city towards a bench to sit on, Isak knows that he's being a little quiet. As they sit to eat, he pokes at his food.

"You remember when I came out to you?" Jonas asks, and when Isak glances up at him he's simply eating his food, always making the things that matter the most feel like they're casual, enough so that Isak's felt like they doable, too. "And we were sitting like this?"

They were. An almost perfect replica of how they were sitting when Isak came out to him, like in this they were suddenly united.

"Yeah," he says, playing along with whatever this is.

"I was kind of nervous," Jonas says. "And I just remember thinking that, like- It must have been so much worse for you. I mean, I could have turned out to be an asshole."

Despite the heavy subject Isak snorts, softly so it's mostly breath.

"Well, you're not dead yet, you've still got time for that."

"Yeah," Jonas says, chuckling, too, into his food, which Isak watches because he's watching his profile. He chews. "I thought of you a lot, though, when I was coming out to everyone else, too. Until that moment I don't think I'd realised how brave you'd been."

He looks at Isak, and Isak looks back.

It didn't feel brave. It felt fucking terrifying, but it felt like something he had to do, too.

Right after his dad left he really, really though that maybe the closet was all he could ask for and all that he deserved. It took rising tension and Eskild's bravery and Jonas to make him feel like maybe he was still someone who was worthy of coming out and still receiving loyalty, because if Jonas kept giving it to him, then he had to be. And he had to give himself the courtesy of reaching for a better life.

"You helped," he says, and it's the biggest understatement of his life.

It's the closest he's ever come to actually telling Jonas was he meant to him back then. What he still kind of means.

Jonas didn't just help, Jonas was the person who cared for him enough that even when he wanted to the most, he didn't give up on himself, because he knew it would make Jonas sad if he did. 

"Good," Jonas says, and like always it sounds like he really means it. Then: "Are you okay, Is?"

So he's noticed. Of course he fucking has.

Isak wishes he was okay. He wishes that this was easy, and he could feel all the things he's feeling for Even, all the good, warm things, and feel unequivocally happy and excited, because that's what those kinds of feelings deserve.

But everything is complicated, for him. Letting people in is complicated for him, and exposing himself to everything good a relationship could give him also means exposing himself, period, and making himself vulnerable, in a way he wish he was brave enough to do, but might actually not be.

"I don't know," he says, because he doesn't, and normally he might lie, but there's no point to lie about this.

"Okay," Jonas says. "But you know you can talk to me, right? Really."

"I know."

"Even with Mikael–"

"I know."

He interrupts because he can't stand hearing Jonas put him first again. First, before even his boyfriend.

"Good." 

There it is once more. 

Isak doesn't say anything. Just goes back to his food, picking at it, and watching it out of the corner of his eye when Jonas does the same. Then:

"Do you know one of the reasons why I like him so much, actually?" Jonas asks, and Isak doesn't, because he never asked, because he couldn't stand to know, because being jealous has made him kind of an asshole friend. It's a guilt he learned to live with a long time ago.

"No?"

"He makes me a better listener," Jonas says. "And he makes me more open, too."

Their eyes meet. Jonas's are serious.

"In the beginning it freaked me the fuck out." They both smile, but it's weak. "Like, I used to be very chill and all of that, but he's forcing me to be vulnerable in a way I haven't really been before."

Isak looks away. 

There's a lump in his throat, and it's growing, and it's familiar, that's why it aches so much. It's exactly what Even has been doing for him, too.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," Jonas says. "Anyway. Is."

He always says Isak's nickname so kindly.

"Don't shut me out again, yeah?"

Isak closes his eyes. Tries not to cry.

He was really so sad, then. Sad enough that he couldn't even accept Jonas's help.

Maybe he still kind of is.

*

The next time he hangs out with Even, then, it's his turn to be quiet.

Even wants to cook for him. Actually he's insisted on it, for some reason, because apparently he's gathered that Isak hardly ever bothers to cook for himself and taken it upon himself to be the one to, finally, he says, _feed Isak a proper meal_.

They grocery shop together first, Isak pushing the cart through the shop as Even places stuff into it, and it's the kind of domestic thing that Isak really, kind of craves.

"So what's all this supposed to become?" he asks, looking into the cart that's filling up with stuff and worrying a tiny bit about the price.

"Lasagne," Even says. "Dad's recipe."

Oh.

Normally that would pass Isak by pretty easily - a lot of people mention their dads in passing a lot of the time, and he's had to get used to it - but tonight that aches a little.

"It's comfort food and also you'll be able to eat the leftovers for the next couple of days."

"It's comfort food?"

Isak focuses in that, instead of the mountains of kindness and consideration that Even is showing with this simple thing.

"Well, you look like you could use some comfort."

He says it like it's casual, but afterwards he glances at Isak, too, like he's studying his reaction. Isak rolls the cart along, out of his line of sight.

"Well," Even goes on, behind him. "And it tastes good."

"Hm."

Isak lets him change the subject, and it keeps being changed on his accord, until they eventually make it to check-out.

Once their stuff has gone through, and Even has paid, the cashier asks them if they'd like some coupons. Even says no, but Isak says yes and takes them for him.

"It's from when I first moved out," he says, when they're outside and Even raises his brows in question. "I didn't like accepting my dad's money, so I learned to budget."

The whole thing seems like it keeps coming up recently, or maybe he's just pressed enough to suddenly be noticing it. Every little thing that pokes at the stuff he still hasn't dealt with, and reminds him of everything that happened.

Even just nods.

"It's smart," he offers, kindly. "Maybe I should do it, too."

Isak shrugs.

Still, as they get cooking, back in kollektivet and warm again, Isak feels himself perk up a little. It's just that that's what Even's company does for him; makes him want to smile more, and makes him feel that pleasant warmth in the low of his belly that spreads even wider whenever Even does something sweet.

He's sweet a lot right now, cutting up carrots and telling Isak a story about this interview he saw with this director he likes, while Isak sits on the counter, eating some of the carrot-pieces Even cuts up and listening.

"You-" Even says, interrupting himself, when Isak reaches down to stop his hand with the knife for a second while he steals another piece. "Stay out of my cooking space."

He pushes Isak's hand away, making Isak giggle and try to reach out again, only to have Even grab his hands and place them back in his lap.

"No," he says, and Isak chuckles, half just delighted by the fact that their hands are touching. "Stop it."

"Why? I thought you wanted me fed? Carrots are nutrition, aren't they?"

"You're impossible."

Isak laughs, completely and un-complicatedly happy in just that moment, as he watches Even smile about it, first to him and then to the cutting board as he goes back to it, shaking his head.

When Isak has stopped laughing, Even gives him another carrot-slice with the sweetest, delicate smile.

It could be so easy.

He can just see how easy it could be, and how happy it could make him. Because it could make him happy, he's sure. It's like coming out was: it's scary but it would be good for him, and if he did it he would once again be taking a bet on himself, trying to give himself a shot at having something good.

Actually, it couldn't just be easy, it _was_ , for a while. It was so easy, and so natural, and felt so safe, but keeping distance between him and the outside world is the only thing he's known for years, and now that it's all caught up with him it's all he knows how to do. 

That evening, after they've eaten the meal that Even cooked, Isak walks him home because he needs the walk; because he needs to do something with his body to get out of his head.

When they reach Even's front door they both stop, and they've been quiet almost the whole way. 

Isak thinks this is a turning point for them. 

Tonight could have so easily been a date. The food, the banter, the walk here, the kiss that they'd share if that was something any of them actually felt like they could do.

Their eyes meet. Moonlight above them, light from the stairway, Even's blue eyes looking at his lips but then away again. 

"Do you still like Jonas?" he asks, and Isak feels his whole chest crumble.

He has to tell him the truth. He has to.

"No," he whispers, and it's the first time he's fully realizing it. "Not the same."

"Okay. I don't feel the same way about Mikael either." 

Isak closes his eyes. Lump in his throat growing.

He can’t. He just can’t.

When their eyes meet again, he shakes his head. 

"I’m sorry," he says, still just a whisper, but Even just nods, smile on his face not sad as much as it is resigned. As much as it's still kind.

"It's okay," he says. "I agree."

This might be the saddest thing Isak has ever been a part of. He can't believe that he's the driving force in it.

Eventually it's him who reaches out first, too, hand grazing Even's arm, before Even moves as well.

They hug.

He's always liked hugs. There's something about the full-body contact that's exactly what he craves, chest to chest, and arms around waists, and face hid in the crook of someone else's neck. There's something about how safe they feel.

Even's body is warm against his, and Isak breaks away first, because otherwise he might start crying.

"Night," he says, hating that his voice comes out hoarse, avoiding eye-contact.

"Yeah," Even says. "Night, Is."

Isak doesn't look up until after he's gone, glass-door closed between them, and the only thing there's left to see is his back, retreating. 

When he gets home, he crawls straight into his bed, turns off the light, and closes his eyes.

He doesn't fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uuuh. listen: i promise you there's a happy ending and that isak will end up being given a lot of love and a lot of happiness and i'm sorry! me @ isak right now: i'm so sorry, i love you, forgive me for writing you this sad
> 
> anyway, lol, i hope you enjoyed this as much as a chapter like this can be enjoyed. how do we feel about it all? the jonas/isak conversation? the mutta and even friendship? about the decision which cannot be spoken of? the pulled-straight-out-of-a-high-school-romeo-and-juliet-theatre-production-glass-touching? i do love a little bit of cheesy symbolism
> 
> tell me your thoughts in the comments! as always, i'd love to know


	8. EVEN ⚬ Do you remember

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! i wanted to post this chapter yesterday but then ao3 fucked up for a while so blame them, not me, and enjoy this chapter (that's now an easter chapter, i guess, happy easter btw) now instead
> 
> there are some more mentions of the sa again, as well as a mention of how even did it (pills) and of past self-destructive thoughts, so beware of that. nothing much more intense than what we’ve already been through though

It's better this way.

That's what he tells himself, or tries to tell himself, or tries to use to quieten out all the other noise that he'd rather ignore than have to deal with: it's better this way.

When he comes up after saying goodbye to Isak at the bottom of the stairwell, he's so suddenly exhausted that he aims towards his room without stopping to say hello to Mutta or Adam, who he can hear chatting in the kitchen. Instead he closes the door behind him and gets into his bed.

A few seconds later there's a knock on his door.

"Yo, dude," Adam says, from the other side of the door. "Is it a bad mood or a good mood?"

"I'm just tired."

"Hm."

There's a few seconds of silence, maybe a hesitation, before his door is opened to reveal Adam, leaning in the doorway. When he speaks again his voice is gentler, in that tone it's rare for it get.

"You okay, man?" he asks, and Even kind of hates being babysat, especially after what just happened, but he still just shrugs.

"Semi-bad mood," he offers.

"Okay," Adam says. "I attempted to make Burek earlier and it's nearly unburned, so do you want to join Mutta and I to eat some of it?"

"You don't need to do that."

"No, well. Technically we never need to do that, but that doesn't usually stop us."

It's true. And Even hates being doted on, but he's used to ignoring that, too, because he's used to putting other people's feelings first. Sometimes it seems like it's all he ever does.

He knows what's they're doing, and why they're doing it: how there's an unspoken worry sitting between them that's brought out whenever he's sad, because they all know what happened the last time that sadness got a little bit too big.

It's why he puts their feelings first. Because he's still feeling guilty.

"Okay," he says, and Adam smiles, and that makes it almost worth it. "How burned is nearly unburned?"

"Peel off the bottom layer and you're fine."

"Okay, then," he says, and gets off his bed again. "Let's see what you've got."

Once he's in the living room, he stays for a while. They make him stay for a while, anyway, on the couch, watching a movie, but they're both kind enough not to comment either when he tunes out most of their conversation and doesn't join either.

When he eventually crawls into bed again, the bad mood hasn't quite left.

They like each other.

Him and Isak, they like each other, just like him and Mikael liked each other, but Even saw what happened last time, and knows what he did last time, and it's better this way because he doesn't know how to have things that doesn't break, and he hasn't fixed the parts of himself that him and Mikael died on last time yet. 

Actually, he hasn't fixed anything. Instead he's stuck on it, chest still bleeding everywhere as soon as any of it is as much as paid attention to, and he can't offer that to someone again. He can't.

Turning to his lamp he turns it off to plunge his room into darkness and go to sleep.

In the morning he sleeps through his first lecture. It's hard to feel like it matters, anyway.

*

It's not even that he starts spending less time around Isak. It's just that it all becomes delicate.

Actually, they spend about the same amount of time together now as they did before. It'd be hard not to, since their groups, by now, have become well and truly intertwined, and since a lot of the things they do, they now do together. 

Instead of seeing less of each other, then, they watch each other a lot, joking and touching a little less and trying, desperately, to navigate whatever it is they are now. People who want to be together but feel like they can't.

If Even wanted tragedy, he's sure as hell got it now.

Half a week or so after the night where it happened, they're walking down one of the UiO hallways together towards the cafeteria, with Jonas and Mikael by their sides, too. 

When they met they smiled quietly, and hugged briefly, and now they're walking on either side of the couple in the middle, too far away to touch.

It's almost impossible for Even to resist the urge to gravitate that's still right there.

"Hey, did Mik tell you that we went to the mosque?" Jonas asks while they walk. "It was fun."

"Yeah?" 

It's Even who asks, before he watches it when Mikael nods, hand intertwined with Jonas's and sweet smile on his face, like this is something he's happy about. It makes Even feel wrecked with guilt.

"Yeah. And they liked him," Mikael says. "Remember Mahmoud, my uncle? He was all over him the entire day. Very fascinated by the skating."

Jonas snorts, and Even smiles and watches it as Isak does the same, but silently, to the floor. Quiet, like he is today.

"Is that meant to mean skating _isn't_ fascinating?" Jonas asks.

"Maybe," Mikael says.

"Oh, really?"

Mikael giggles, and they're flirting, and Even's gaze shifts back to Isak to catch eyes and smile about them. Reflex.

He looks away.

In the cafeteria he becomes so distracted by what to get that, despite his attempts not to, he ends up gravitating towards Isak anyway, until they're standing next to each other at the till. Isak smiles at him, a greeting, like he's distracted, too, so Even makes up an excuse to leave quickly, and goes to get them both forks before he joins the others at the table where they're sitting.

When Isak joins, he's grabbed two forks, too. One for each of them.

Even kind of wants to cry.

While they eat Jonas and Mikael keep talking, carrying most of the conversation today, but throughout it all Even can feel Mikael's eyes on him and, occasionally, Jonas's, too. So it seems that, despite their attempts, they're not too good at hiding that something is going on. 

When they leave, Mikael's hand comes up to squeeze his elbow, sweet and kind and delicate, and Even hates that it's something he craves, and that it's not Mikael he craves it from, and he hates the idea of being pitied, and, after a few moments have passed, he tugs his arm away.

Mikael doesn't comment. In the lecture hall, as they wait for the lecturer to start, none of them talk.

*

A few days later he's sitting on the living room couch with the boys, quiet and in the corner as the rest of them have a good time, when the doorbell rings. 

When he goes to open the door, it's Sonja who's in the hallway. He forgot they had a plan.

"Hey," he says, when he sees her, before he steps into the stairwell and, quietly, closes the door behind himself. He doesn't particularly want to invite her in today. 

Looking behind him, to the door he just closed, she raises her brows.

"What?" she asks.

"The boys are over."

"And? I can't be there at the same time, or?" 

She hasn't been, actually, since they ended. It's been too weird, with the halfway-in, halfway-out thing they've been doing, to have her be a part of his friend group, like that's where she belongs, and not in some sort of set-apart, special world full of things that he doesn't know how to name that are all relics from the past. 

He shrugs, and she raises her brows again. Like she can't quite believe him, this time.

"I forgot we had a plan. I'm sorry," he says. "I'm, uh... having a kind of bad day." 

Her expression changes, completely, and he hates that, too. 

"So maybe we should cancel."

"Are you okay?" she asks, worried now, and he sighs.

"Sonja."

"What?" 

And now she's annoyed. 

He could storyboard the changes of mood in this exact fight down to every little micro-expression of hers and of his, too, because they've had it so many times, in so many different variations. She insists she's worried, and he insists it's too much, and if it was a movie he'd cut the sound off here, because everybody in the audience would already know the dialogue. 

She sighs. 

"You always do that," she says. "Whenever I ask you how you are, you assume the worst. Why do you always get mad?"

"Because you're not just asking, are you?" he says, and there it is, her throwing her hands up like he's being impossible, and for a while he's been trying not to be, to let it go more often, but he doesn't have the energy to be the big person today. 

"What do you want me to do?" she asks. "Seriously. What do you expect me to do?"

"Come on–"

"You can forgive Mikael for being a little overbearing so easily," she presses, not giving it up. "Snap of his fingers and a sweet smile and you stop being upset, but for me everything is unforgivable–"

"You won't let me _move on_." 

He says it, finally, and afterwards he pauses to breathe while they stare at each other, frustrated, but he's never said this before. He's never said this before but he means it, he means it, because he's so damn tired of it. They've been stuck here, for years, and everyone in his life keeps bringing it back up, making it impossible to feel like it's something he will ever be allowed to leave behind.

"And you won't let me have closure," she says, and that surprises him.

"What?"

"How are we going to move on if you get pissed at me every time I try to bring it up? You refuse to talk about it. You can't even acknowledge that I tried."

She doesn't say it in anger, but sadly, instead.

"I'm not a cruel person, you know, although sometimes it feels like that's how you think of me, and sometimes you make me believe it, too. I was nineteen, and I was terrified, and I tried, but you're never going to acknowledge that, so I should just–"

She looks at him. A moment.

"I should leave."

"Sonja–"

"I'll talk to you later, I guess," she says, pulling her bag further up her shoulder and pausing just a moment to look at him like she's considering saying something else, before she shakes her head. "No. I'm just going to go."

He's stunned enough by her that by the time he has anything to say, her footsteps have already receded down the stairs.

*

The next day, Mikael is over. Even feels guilty again.

It might have been Isak who shook his head, but Even feels like he was just as big a part of making sure that they're not happening right now, and it's because of this fucking thing that he did ages ago that is still haunting him to this day and that he can't speak about, which apparently has been hurting not just him, but Sonja, too, and now Isak as well.

Then there's Mikael. 

Mikael who's worrying his lip, watching him with the attentiveness he only ever wears when Even is sad, and Even hates it, and hates that he hates it just as much, because he doesn't want to be the person who gets angry at people trying to be there for him, but he is.

He feels suffocated, and stuck, and tired. He just feels really tired.

They're alone in the kitchen and in the flat. Even is making them tea, because the sun will be down soon and Mikael will be able to eat and drink, and he's using it as a cover to avoid Mikael's gaze for as long as he possibly can.

It's not long enough.

"Even," Mikael says, eventually, so hesitant but so soft, and Even kind of wants to cry. There's a lump in his throat and it's growing. "What's happening with you and Isak?"

Even closes his eyes. Keeps his back turned. Fiddles with the tea-pot.

He knew that it was going to happen tonight. Something about the way the air sat between them, like it was forming itself around the pain that's dug deep in-between them. Something about how Mikael looked. The way he's always looked when he's refusing to back down.

The way he looked at the hospital.

"Nothing," he says.

"That's not true."

Silence, again. Mikael waits, not saying anything, and Even keeps fiddling with the string of the tea-bags, hoping that Mikael will change the subject. He doesn't.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Come on."

"It's better this way, okay?" 

It just comes out of him, a little harshly, because he's not sure if it's actually true, and he doesn't want Mikael to press him on it, but when he finally, finally turns back to face Mikael, Mikael is looking both sad and determined at the same time. It breaks Even's heart.

"You said no?"

"No. It was a mutual decision."

"Really?" 

Mikael sounds skeptical, and Even hates that a little, too. 

"You don't believe me?" he asks, and he knows that he's only making it worse. Usually he would back off, go be alone until his sour mood has passed, because they never talk about it while either of them is feeling frustrated, because frustration helps the truth slip out and all they've been doing for years and years is dance around it, like maybe if they ignore that it happened it won't hurt so much.

"I believe you," Mikael says, kind tone because he's always so kind. "I always believe you."

"Okay."

"I just mean that you've done it before."

So there it is, then. The reference that can't be ignored.

"Really?" Even asks, but sad, not angry. "We're going to do this now?"

"Well, if you're making the same mistake again, for the same silly reasons–"

"Really?" This time it's a little mad. "Silly? None of the reasons were silly."

"I just mean..."

"What?"

"You pushed me away," Mikael says, which Even knows is true, and hates to hear him say because of exactly that. He turns back to the tea-pot.

"I was traumatized," he says, quietly, a half-hearted explanation while he pulls at the tea-bag string again. He can feel Mikael's eyes on him, but won't meet them because he can't.

"We were in love with each other," Mikael says, barely above a whisper, and Even knew it was coming but it still makes him want to cry. Still makes him need to bite his lip and swallow around the lump in his throat when he keeps his back turned, because he doesn't know how to look at Mikael while Mikael is digging up their past like this; the exact thing that hurt them so much. "I was ready, even after. And I know I was in the closet, but–"

"It wasn't because of that." 

Even can't stand the thought that Mikael might think it was in any way because of him, any part of it, although he's known all along that Mikael probably does. He's feared it all along. 

It's only the need to reassure him that makes him turn back around. 

"Of course it wasn't because of that. You've really thought so?"

"Well, you did it after I couldn't kiss you back."

Fuck.

"It wasn't because of that," he repeats, desperate to make Mikael understand. "I think I would have done it no matter what."

"Even–"

"It's true." 

He's never actually said this out loud, but then again he hasn't said any part of this out loud, because he's been trying to pretend that it didn't happen at all. 

It did, though. What's happening right now is proof that it did. 

"I was so sad, Mikael, that's why I did it. And after, I just– I'd just broken Sonja's heart, and yours, and my parents', and my own. How was I going to think about being in love after that?"

Mikael shrugs, fiddling with the seam of his jeans.

"I think you were scared," he says.

"Of course I was scared."

"No. I mean, you'd just gotten a diagnosis and you'd just failed, too. It was easier to pull away than to try."

"Yeah," Even says, frustrated now again. "Which part of that is unreasonable, Mikael? What did you want me to do?"

"Tell me it's not the same thing you're doing with Isak right now."

"Maybe it is!" It all boils over, and now he's loud again, but Mikael is pressing at Even's sorest spot and it hurts; it's pressing right there, square in the middle of the way he failed the people he cared about and the way he might do that again. "It might happen again."

"It won't."

"You don't know that. Mikael–" He says it desperately, and he wants so desperately to just leave this conversation but he can't. "I knew what would happen last time."

That's the truth that's really been digging in deep, cutting through his bones this whole time, making him sick with guilt, because he did. 

The main character has to die in the end, because that's a good story. The love story has to be tragic, because when you're miserable and self-destructive and are looking for an excuse to let everything fall apart, it's appealing to think that you could throw yourself into a love story and go down beautifully. No regard for the casualties. 

"There was a part of me that wanted to fuck everything up, and that part didn't care about you or Sonja or anyone else, and it might happen again, because maybe I'll make it. Maybe I'm that kind of person."

"You're not."

"You don't know that." 

It's no longer frustrated but defeated, all the energy gone out of him, because he's not actually sure if he knew this was how he felt before. If he had any idea that what he's really scared of isn't just that something will come along and ruin them, but that he's the kind of person who's so selfish and so sad that he'll drag Isak down while he's trying to ruin himself. 

"What if I don't know how to have something without fucking it up?"

The central question.

Their eyes meet. Both of them breathing deeply, because this was more a fight than it was a conversation, and Mikael looking like he might cry, but then:

"That's the saddest fucking thing I've ever heard."

It breaks the spell of sadness, the bubble they've been in. 

It breaks it enough that Even smiles. Then chuckles.

Mikael does, too.

"Really?" Even says. "We've said a lot of sad things to each other."

"Yeah. This one tops them all, I think."

Their eyes meet, and this time they both smile.

Even sighs. A deep exhale, all of the weight of the this conversation lifting off his chest and dispelling into the air, as exhaustion settles in instead, that post-cry one even though there's been no tears. 

He grabs a glass of water for himself, sits down at the table. Looks at his watch as Mikael follows.

"Fifteen minutes before you can drink," he says, and Mikael nods.

"Yeah."

For a while they just sit, breathing quietly. Not avoiding each other like before, but not speaking either. Instead, Even thinks.

"Maybe it's not who I am," he says eventually, more an offering than something he believes in, but not something he's entirely disbelieving of either. It's easier to try to be rational when he knows what the problem is. 

Mikael looks at him. 

"Or maybe it's not all I can have, or whatever, I don't know, but... It's difficult to remember when everyone keeps bringing up what happened back then. There's the rumors, and then there's Sonja. And you."

Mikael's face shifts, but he says nothing. Even goes on:

"But then we don't even talk about it, we just stay in this endless limbo–"

"I know," Mikael says, which surprises Even a little. "I don't like it either. I know it's mostly my fault."

"It's my fault, too."

They look at each other. After a moment, Mikael shrugs.

"Maybe," he says. Another pause, then a breath. "I think maybe I thought that if we didn't talk about it, we could go back to who we were before."

It's the same thing Even's felt. 

It was nice to still go around pining for Mikael for a while, and it was nice to stay in this limbo-stage of everything-not-quite-over with Sonja, too. It didn't matter that maybe he didn't feel that way anymore, because it wasn't about that. It was always about trying to hold on to the person he was before.

After the whole thing happened, it was like even his body felt foreign to him. They gave him medicine for his mind, and they'd pumped his stomach and made him lose his voice, and they made his body feel numb and hollowed out, which was strange when all he'd known for so long was being wrecked with sadness. 

They gave him a diagnosis, too, and the whole thing made him into a different person than he thought he was. He thought he was kind, and happy, and strong, but suddenly he was faced with this version of himself that was selfish, and sad, and wanted to die so much that he actually tried.

He felt unrecognizable to himself, like he was put in a stranger's life and body, or like someone had stolen his, and maybe that's why he's been so scared that the whole thing would happen again. Because it felt out of his control. Alien. 

Like something that could overtake him again, without a moments notice.

Mikael exhales.

"I don't know if that's possible, though," he says.

It's probably not, Even thinks. But maybe that's okay.

"I don't think so," he says, but when Mikael looks at him he shrugs. Tries to show him it's fine. 

Mikael, hesitantly smiles.

"Okay," he says. And: "Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

While they both look at each other, Mikael reaches out and takes his hand, before he squeezes it, just once. Even squeezes his back.

They let go.

"Will you–" Mikael starts, but pauses. Hesitates a moment, then starts again: "You know it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? If you think you can't have good things, then you won't reach for them, which means you won't have them."

"That's very clever."

"I got it from my mum."

They both laugh. Weakly, but there.

Even shrugs.

"It really was a mutual decision though."

"Well." Mikael shrugs, too. "Then change your mind."

*

Later, when Mutta comes home, they're still together in the kitchen, but this time the sun has gone down and Even has taken it upon himself to cook some dinner. They're listening to music and humming along and Even feels much better than he has these last few weeks.

"Hey, Mik," Mutta says, hugging him from behind before he ruffles Even's hair. "And you. Are you sharing your food?"

"When have I ever not shared my food?" It's true, and Mutta smiles. "Did you have a good day?"

"Yeah, it was great. Someone's in a good mood again?"

"Well, Mik's here, so…"

"So Mik makes everything better, but we don't? Good to know, bro, good to know."

Even smiles about it, and when he glances at Mikael, Mikael is glancing back and smiling, too, in a private sort of way. 

When he's left again, later that evening, and Adam's come home, Mutta finds him in the kitchen again, and nudges his shoulder with his own.

"So, what's up?" he says. "Good-mood guy. Any updates?"

Even shrugs.

"I don't know," he says. "We talked. Mikael and I."

"Oh." It takes a moment, but then Mutta grins, reaching out to touch his shoulder. "That's great, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You really, actually talked?"

"Don't sound so surprised."

They both laugh, just a little.

"Okay, okay." Mutta squeezes his shoulder, before he lets it go, leaning against the kitchen counter while Even finishes his evening cup of tea. "So when are you going to actually lock down Isak, anyway?"

So he's really that obvious.

"What?"

"Come on. I know your heart-eyes, man, and you've been making them constantly at him, and not to get your hopes up or anything, but he's kind of been making them back. And you need to get on the dating scene again, or at the very least to get laid–"

"Hey!"

"I'm just saying," he presses, growing a little more serious. "I know it's been a rough time with Mikael and these last few years and everything, and you deserve something good to happen to you soon. And I'm not an expert, but I feel like Isak might be a good thing waiting to happen. So..."

"So?"

Even is partly avoiding the question, but mostly just teasing him. Mutta rolls his eyes but smiles.

"You're impossible," he says, shaking his head and slapping his shoulder again before he backs out of the room. "Keep me updated, yeah?"

"Fine."

"Okay. Talk to you later, loverboy."

Mutta leaves, and when Even turns back to his cup, he's smiling. 

*

Soon after he asks Sonja over again to apologize.

They're lying on his bed like they always are, her on an elbow leaning over him, using her free hand to card through his hair, like she's noticing the he's quiet, or maybe like she can tell, too, that this might be the last time they're ever going to do this. 

While she touches his hair she breathes, deep, deep, deep, and when their eyes meet they both smile.

He's trying to let her speak today. To actually listen for once.

"Do you remember," she says. "That Friday a month or so into us dating where we were meant to go to some party at school, but I got my period and wanted to stay home instead, so you came over with pizza?"

"Yeah."

"And I was being a bitch–" He snorts, and reaches up to wipe the tear off her cheek that just fell. "And only wanted to eat the middle, good parts, and somehow, you just let me and ate my crusts. And then we watched a movie, and you held my hand, and then you kissed the back of it."

"It was common courtesy," he says, gentle because she's crying.

"It was the first time I knew how serious you really were about us."

He smiles, softly, reaching out to take her hand and squeeze it with his own. 

He understands, he thinks. How much it meant to them, back then, and how in love they were with each other. 

She's wearing these earrings today, silver, small hoops, that she wore years ago, too, when he was first falling for her. He remembers it so clearly, sitting behind her class and watching the shell of her ear and her earlobe, how it looked from behind when her hair was tucked back, and being so intensely fascinated by this tiny little thing, pining and pining and pining until one night she took mercy on him, in the middle of a party, and kissed him first.

It had broken his heart when they first started drifting apart from each other, and it had broken his heart even more when something that he couldn't control but that was part of his mind became what was starting to tear their relationship apart at the seams; to turn it into something horrible, and sad, and tragic. 

He takes their hands now, brings them to his lips, and kisses the back of hers. 

"You have so much of me," she says, quiet now like this is the kind of thing it's hard to say out loud. Even keeps holding her hand. "I invested so much of myself into caring for you. If I stop having you in my life, I'm scared I'll just be empty."

"You wouldn't," Even says. "You're so strong, S."

He remembers how she'd squared up her shoulders, after, her and his mother the only two people in his life who kept it together when everyone else cried. But she shakes her head, and he wonders if maybe she didn't not break, but broke in silence, or in private, or hidden from him instead.

"Only because you needed me to be," she says, and he closes his eyes not to cry. "Sometimes, straight after, I couldn't even look away from you. I was scared that if I did you'd be gone and–"

She breaks off, more tears, and he reaches out to wipe them off.

"The only thing that got me through was having to get through." She breathes. "For you."

"For me," he says. And with a hand in his hair, like always, she smiles.

For the first time in a long time he remembers that she loves him, and has loved him, devotion spilling out of her every breath. 

He remembers, too, that there are reasons they should move on, and that they aren't just that he wants to, but that she needs to, too. That she should be set free from him, finally, and given the opportunity to care for someone else or for herself that way she cared about him all this time.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I should have acknowledged that you were trying, you're right. I should have thanked you, or– I don't know."

He meets her eyes.

"You loved me."

She nods.

"For a while I didn't know how to stop."

Squeezing her hand, he smiles. And it's been years since they had what they had, but, for just a moment, this still feels like the most important thing. Maybe it's because it only now feels like it's the end.

"And now?"

To his surprise, she scoffs.

"Don't get cocky," she says, and he snorts, loud enough to break the bubble of reminiscence and reverence that's been spun out between them these last ten minutes or so. "That's not to mean that I've been _pining_. You're not that interesting."

"No?"

"No."

They share a smile, him shaking his head and her watching, and it feels a little bit like something inside of him breaking loose; like something is letting go.

"I loved you, too, you know," he says, but much lighter in tone now, much lighter in his chest now, much lighter all in all. She nods.

"I know," she says. They let go of each other's hands. "I felt it, for the longest time."

When she leaves, he follows her to the doorway where he hugs her close, and she hugs him back. When she stops on the platform after the first part of the stairwell and turns around to look at him, and he looks back, and they both smile, it feels significant.

The next time they all go out, bar and beers and Isak not there yet, he's sitting next to Magnus when his phone alarm rings to remind him to take his night-dosage of meds. Magnus sees the screen.

"Bipolar," Even says, to explain, although it occurs to him that Magnus, because of the rumors, might already know. To his surprise, that makes Magnus perk up.

"Really?" he says, and Even nods. "My mum's bipolar, too."

"Oh, yeah," Even says, remembering now, although he hadn't connected the two dots before. "Isak told me, when I told him about it."

"Cool," Magnus says, nodding, and then, as if he just had a funny thought, he chuckles. Even raises his brows. "Man, one time she was having an episode and needed to get on the trains, right?"

Even nods, and Magnus throws himself into a story about how his mum almost got one of the directors of the train company fired, which he chuckles his way through.

It makes sense. It's a funny story, and eventually Even finds himself laughing along, too.

They're a long way into the evening before Isak arrives, but he does eventually, scarf and beautiful curls, and then he lets Mikael hug him hello, when Mikael sees him first, and catches Even's eye over his shoulder. 

There's something so familiar about it, Even thinks. Maybe that's the reason why it looks easy when Isak smiles.

They meet at the bar. Isak is getting himself a beer, and Even is joining him.

Isak smiles and says hi, quietly, but then he looks at his feet instead of at Even, avoiding eye-contact while they wait for his drink, and it's so incredibly delicate. 

If Even confessed to him now he doesn't think he'd get a good response, because they're in public, and it's sudden, and it's confrontational, too, if he does it when Isak can't leave, but he wants a little bit to let him know anyway.

He shifts, leg forward, and nudges to tip of Isak's shoe with his own. Isak smiles, still to the floor but sweet.

More silence.

"Cool conversation," Even says eventually, and Isak huffs out a breath, soft, that could be a laugh.

"I don't really know what to say."

"It's weird, now."

"Yeah."

It's still a breath that time, his chuckle, but more forceful now, and followed by him glancing up, finally, finally, to meet Even's gaze. They smile. For a long stretched-out moment that's all they do, before Isak's chin dips down again and he looks away.

Not the right time yet, then.

"Let's go back to the table," Even says, because he thinks this is so delicate that he can't just blunder in like he usually would, but has to try, hard, to lay himself bare for Isak in a way that's non-obtrusive, because the most important thing to him is that Isak feels okay. 

Isak nods.

"Okay," he says.

"Okay."

So nothing happens that night, then, but when Even gets home, sober and clear-headed and as free as he's felt for a while, he fishes out his phone, goes into his messages with Isak, and scrolls through them for a while, smiling at the ones he remembers made him laugh. Then:

"I don't expect anything," he writes. "But I've changed my mind. If you want to, I'm in."

He doesn't expect Isak to be ready right away. Maybe he never will be. But Even will certainly never get him, if he doesn't dare to ask. And he thinks he should be allowed to ask.

He presses send.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo! things are happening! how did you like this chapter? the tagline of it, i feel, is "people who have been avoiding talking for literally years finally talk." did you enjoy it? are you into the mikael/even backstory in this?
> 
> i feel like it was interesting to explore the idea that even kind of knew that kissing mikael was going to end badly and also was kind of drawn towards the whole self-destruction thing, which i felt like made sense for him considering his love for tragic romance and the hero dying and being saved etc. etc.. like he's kind of morbidly fascinated by it, you know? and i feel like when you are sad you're kind of drawn towards sad things which, you know. makes sense.
> 
> also this is deliberately complicated, with even both being annoyed at mikael and sonja for not letting him move on AND doing things himself to keep them all locked into the past, bc i think when you’re tying to move on from something those two urges co-exist 
> 
> anyway, interested to see how you felt about this, so do leave a comment telling me what you thought!


	9. ISAK ⚬ But I'm here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! hope you've had a good easter if you celebrate it, or some nice time off if you’ve had that. hope you're ready for the penultimate chapter of this fic. i have nothing to say this time except enjoy your reading!!

Isak is out of excuses now.

The night after their last evening out Even sends him a text, telling him he's changed his mind, and Isak reads it in the dark of his room, fighting between the urge to smile and the nerves, not pleasant, that settle in his stomach. The only thing between him and what he wants now is himself.

It stresses him out.

He misses Even a lot, that's the thing, and he _wants_ to, badly, but he just doesn't know how. It's scary, and it requires him to change, and he feels like he's only just learned a way to be okay. There's so much to dig up.

The night that he gets the text, he obsesses over what to reply for hours. Over how to strike the right balance that lets Even down easy, but also doesn't push him away, because these last few weeks of distance have been horrible enough; he doesn't know how he'd manage not having Even in his life at all.

He obsesses, and he obsesses, but he can't come up with anything. In the end, he doesn't reply at all.

For the following week he hardly sleeps either. Then there's another night out.

Isak goes, defiantly, although he has questioned Jonas enough to know that Even will be coming, too – why wouldn't he, he always does – and is nervous about facing him when he's effectively ghosted him. That's another thing he spends his late nights obsessing about.

Which is fruitless, it turns out. Because Even doesn't mention the text at all.

When Isak walks in Mikael sees him first and invites him in for a hug which he accepts. Then Mutta, and Adam, and Magnus, who were all hanging out shooting darts together, and then: 

Even.

Their eyes meet over Magnus’s shoulder, and a moment passes where all they do is watch each other. It’s been six days since the text, Isak counted, and he’s worried.

Even shrugs.

He’s smiling as he does it, kind, and Isak feels immediately relieved, flood of it running through him, because it feels like permission to not explain himself; feels like a promise that, at least tonight, they don’t have to talk about it.

He hugs Even hello, too.

For a while, it's a good night. 

Actually, it's a night that feels exactly like they did before, or at least pretty close to it. 

Even, true to his shrug, doesn't comment on the text that he hasn't replied to. Instead, after their first drink, he nudges Isak's shoulder with his own and gestures towards the empty billiard table with a nod of his head. Isak only hesitates for a second before he nods yes.

"Have you gotten worse at this?" Even asks, fifteen or so minutes into their game. "Or have I gotten better?"

"Oh, shut up," Isak says, and Even laughs. The kind of laugh that makes Isak ache with longing, but he can’t think of that right now, so he shuts it down. Instead he shoots, and gets two balls in a hole. "See? Don't speak too soon."

"But I'm still a little ahead."

"For now."

Even shakes his head, teasingly, and when he bends down, angles up, shoots, he gets two balls in, too. Well.

"See?" he says, copying Isak from before and grinning. "Don't speak too soon."

Isak misses him again.

In the end Even wins their game, and Isak remembers full well that he promised him once that if he ever did win, Isak would let him kiss his cheek. 

He doesn't remind him, though, and Even doesn't remind him. Instead he leans in close, angling himself away from the bartender, and pulls a joint out of his pocket, showing it to Isak with raised brows.

"Yeah?" he asks, and Isak should say no because if he's longing for him now, when he's just a little tipsy, it'll be much worse when he's high, too. But he wants, despite himself. Wants enough to say yes.

Even nods towards the door. 

"Come outside," he says, and even though he shouldn't, Isak does.

Outside, they're alone.

That's what first strikes Isak. The cold air, and the starry night-sky, and the music that's coming from inside but is muffled out here, underlining their aloneness more than it contradicts it.

Even lights the blunt and takes a drag before he hands it over. Their fingertips touch. 

While Isak smokes, he glances at Even. He doesn't actually look too bad.

Of course, that's an understatement. He looks more than not too bad, he looks good, strand of hair falling in his face as he leans back against the brick wall behind them and looks out over the street, contemplative look on his face.

Isak keeps looking, until Even looks back.

At first Even just smiles, and then he looks amused.

"What?" he says. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing."

"Hm." Even takes the blunt back from him, and goes back to looking at the building across the street, while Isak listens to the eruption of laughter that comes from inside and then dies down again. Even looks back. "What?"

"Nothing," Isak insists, although of course it's not nothing. Once again Even smiles, before he shakes his head, too.

"Okay," he says, but when he goes back to glancing away, he nudges Isak's shoulder with his own, playful and sweet, before he hands the blunt back over, too. Isak smiles to himself, earnestly, and let's himself breathe in this quiet, calm moment. Breathe more than he has for the last many days.

He doesn't mean to. He doesn't at all mean to, but it's just so nice to be close to him again, and to breathe in his scent, and to finally feel calm. To finally, finally, feel calm.

He leans in, slowly, and rests his temple onto Even's shoulder.

It's fine. It's good. It's him watching Even smile out of the corner of his eye, and it's Even adjusting himself, free hand taking the blunt from Isak as he lifts the other one and slings it around Isak's shoulders, pulling him in, until they're standing so close they're nearly hugging.

Then he turns his head, too, and presses his lips into Isak's hair, and Isak's hear sinks. It's the first kiss they've ever shared, and Isak can't do this. He just can't do this.

"I miss you," Even says, nothing more than a whisper, but it has the power to undo Isak completely. “I’m not going to pressure you on the text, but I really did mean what it says.“

"Even."

It sounds so sad.

"What? You don’t want me to say that?"

Isak could cry. Even is so earnest, and Isak could cry. 

"I can’t." Even’s face falls a little, and Isak hates himself for it. "I’m sorry. It’s just– I do things alone. I’m better on my own, that's how life works for me."

Even pulls away from him, enough so that their eyes can meet, and when they do his are so sincere, just like his voice was it; so pleading and kind, as he shakes his head.

"No one's better on their own. Everyone needs people."

"But _I_ can't."

"Of course you can."

Isak shakes his head. This is too much for him, it's too much, and he doesn't know how to break through, doesn't know how to get past the thing that's telling him he can't, although it's all that he wants. 

"But you like me?" Even goes on.

He does. So, so much. And he wishes he knew how to let that change things, but he doesn't, so he says nothing. Even tilts his head, sad.

"Isak–"

"Please." It comes out far more desperate than he intended, which seems to surprise Even, too, because he falls silent again, immediately. "I don’t want to talk about it."

For a moment, Even just watches him. Then he nods, quietly, and brings the blunt back to his lips again, inhaling for a second before he hands it over to Isak.

"Okay," he says, when Isak takes it. "I won’t pressure you on it."

"Thank you."

"But sometimes talking helps, you know."

It’s true, of course. It’s true, which is why Isak keeps thinking about it when he’s back in his bed that night, tossing and turning and not sleeping.

He wishes he knew how to be the person Even wants him to be, and how to be the person he needs himself to be. He wishes he did, but he doesn't.

He still doesn’t sleep that night.

*

For a while after that, he avoids everyone a little.

Well. He tries to, anyway, but Eskild and Noora and Eva are in the flat all of the time, and Sana is at the lectures, studying him when he comes in every day looking more tired than the last, and the boys are around, constantly, trying to check in.

It was so much easier to isolate himself last time. He doesn't know what that means.

He feels pressured, though. Surrounded, like the walls are caving in, because suddenly everything he’s built his life on for these last years is threatened and unstable and shaky, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.

One evening when he comes home and goes into the kitchen to get himself some food, Eskild is already in there cooking. Noora is no-where to be seen. Maybe she's with Eva.

"Baby Jesus comes back from the dead," Eskild says, when he enters, but in a kind tone, like all its needed to see that Isak's doing kind of badly right now is one look. "It's been a while since I've seen you in here."

Isak just shrugs. Reaching out an arm for him, Eskild gestures for him to come closer, and when he does he pulls him into a halfway embrace.

Isak folds his arms in front of his chest.

"Hey," Eskild says, still, squeezing him closer for a second before he lets him go. "You okay?"

When Isak shrugs, Eskild's expression grows sombre. Maybe worried.

"I saw light in your room at like 3am last night. Are you having trouble sleeping again?"

Once again Isak shrugs, looking into the floorboards instead of meeting Eskild's gaze. He doesn't want to talk about it.

After a second, Eskild touches the underside of his chin, trying to lift his head up as if to get a good look at him, just like you'd do with a child, and Isak pushes his arm away.

"Hey-"

"Can you back off? You're not my actual–"

Dad. You're not my actual dad.

Eskild's face falls, and Isak, immediately, hates himself just a little bit.

"I don't think I am," Eskild says, and Isak hates everything, and Isak feels guilty, and horrible and sad, and this is what he always does when things start getting too close: pushes, away, away, because if he doesn't guard himself then he doesn't know who would. 

Their eyes meet, and Isak says nothing.

On Wednesday, he finds Sana in the lecture hall.

He hasn't slept much that night, but he doesn't sleep a lot in general right now, so it doesn't matter. Worrying about Eskild is just a new way to keep himself occupied when he's staring at the shadows passing over his ceiling.

Still, when he's dumped down into his seat besides Sana, bag and coat sort of flowing everywhere, he scoots down so he's leaning back, and tries to ignore the stress-lump in his throat and the rising pressure on his chest, although it's difficult. It's really fucking difficult.

Sana just looks at him.

"Did you do the readings?" she asks, then.

He didn't. He's tired, and he's miserable, and he feels like the walls are pressing in around him, and he didn't.

"You always ask that," he says, pulling his books out of his back and dumping them on the table along with his laptop, carelessly, and he knows he sounds horrible and that he's taking it out on her and he just doesn't have the energy to stop it. "Why? You know I'm just as hard-working as you."

"It's not about that."

"No?"

"How are you doing?"

That shuts him up. It was what she wanted, too, or at least it looks that way, because when he glances at her, she fixes him with a look like this was a game and she just won it. He can't figure her out, so he shrugs.

"I'm fine."

She rolls her eyes.

"What?"

"You're always fine," she says. "But sometimes you don't do the readings."

"Rarely."

She sighs and fixes him with another look, and that's when he understands. She's tricking him into being honest.

It's kind. It's incredibly kind, and it's too close to home, because he doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want to admit that he's not doing okay, that this is tearing him apart at the seems because he's fighting with himself, his fears against the part of him that wants nothing more than to go to Even's flat and room and bed to give into him, because maybe then he could finally sleep.

"I did the readings," he says.

"Isak–"

"Please don’t."

That makes her fall silent. He doesn't look at her, because he knows that if he did he'd see her looking hurt, and he can't deal with the guilt of that and his own pain at the same time.

"You're the one who said we were best buds," she says, then, and he has to close his eyes not to break into tears, because he knows, he _knows_ , that to Sana friendship is the most important thing, and that this must be hurting her. “I took that seriously.”

He says nothing. Can't even look at her.

"Okay," she says, and goes back to her books.

It's defeated. He made her sound like that.

That afternoon Eva is over, joining him in the kitchen while Noora's in the shower and Eskild is at work.

Seemingly undeterred by his sour mood, she's telling him all about this night out they had last Friday, while Isak was fucking things up with Even, and of course she can't know, but it's getting just a tiny bit on his nerves.

"Anyway," she says, eventually. "When will you have a good hook-up story or something to tell me. I mean you can't be hung up on Jonas forever, can you? Even I eventually moved on."

It's stupid that that's a nerve, but it is a nerve, and she just hit it.

"It's not the same," he says.

"What?"

"You and Jonas, and Jonas and I. It's not the same."

"What?" she repeats. "Because I dated him?"

"No."

"Then why? Because you're two boys?"

"Because I didn't have anyone else," he says, realizing a moment too late, when it feels like being punched in his throat, that he just confessed to one of the things that's pained him the most. She's silent, staring at him with worry in her eyes, and Isak immediately regrets it. "Nevermind–"

"Isak–"

"It doesn't matter."

"Come on."

The chair screeches across the floorboards as he gets up.

"I have to go," he says, and leaves before she has the change to say anything else. 

"You've been quiet lately," Jonas says, that same afternoon, because apparently Isak is still just the boy who comes running to him and asks him out for kebabs whenever life gets to be a little too much. "Are you okay, man?"

"I'm fine."

"I can help, you know."

He's always been like that. He's always offered up being there for Isak, always swooped right in and helped him, always been right there. There's a reason why Isak was desperate for him, and a reason why he's been caught up in this limbo for so long.

"You can't," he says, because it's true.

"Well, I can listen."

"No." He always fucking does this. "Why do you do this?"

"What?"

"You always swoop in, you're always- You're right there, constantly. You're hovering close, and you're watching me, and you're noticing, and you're asking me how I am, and including me in things, and-"

"These are bad things?" Jonas asks, but unlike how Isak thinks he'd usually react, there's little humour in it. Just worry. Always fucking worry. "I'm being a friend."

"Why?" Isak asks. "It's fucking weird, Jonas, that it's always me first. You have a fucking boyfriend, you used to have a girlfriend, and still you're always so close and so mindful and so- When I was younger I thought you were in love with me, too."

"Too?"

"But you're not. Clearly. So, is it a saviour's complex thing? You want so badly to do good, and you can do good by helping me, so you've made looking after me your project and that's how you earn good-person points?"

"What the fuck, Isak?" Jonas says, and it's the first time that he's gone off on someone and they've actually called him out. "What the hell are you on about? I'm being your friend because you're my best friend. It's that simple."

"It's not," Isak says.

"Why?"

"Because I don't- Because- You stick around," he ends on, and Jonas's face falls into something like recognition.

"Isak," he says, so fucking gently, and the lump in Isak's throat grows. "Of course I stick around. It's what friends do."

Isak shakes his head.

"Yes," Jonas presses. "It is." 

There's a long, awful pause, and then: 

"You think you have to do everything on your own."

He sounds so fucking sad when he says it, and he looks sad, too, gaze all sombre like it was when he broke up with Eva, too, or when Isak's dad left and Jonas was there fifteen minutes later, pulling him into the only long hug anyone gave him.

"I try to be there for you because I know how fucking shitty life has been to you," he goes on. "And I worry about you all the time, but if I don't pay attention then I'll never know when something is wrong, because you don't fucking tell me."

"I don't want to burden you," Isak says.

"You lived in a basement for months."

Jonas says it like that's what he's been building towards, sitting back afterwards and drawing in a few deep breaths while Isak looks at him, not knowing what to say to that, and surprised that he sounds so upset about it. That _he's_ the one who's upset.

"Isak," Jonas says again, and this time it's almost desperate. "We've been friends since we were six years old, and you know my mum loves you. You could have lived with us, we could have arranged something for you with the help of an actual adult, and instead you just kept it a secret."

"I was hiding," Isak says.

"Because you're gay. And you weren't sure I'd be okay with that, because I said all of those casually homophobic things."

It's not untrue. Jonas sounds so completely distressed by it that Isak almost wishes he could tell him that it's not true, but it kind of is. It was one of the reasons, anyway.

"Because I was a bad friend."

"No–"

"I should have punched Elias in the face," Jonas says. "You hated him, and _Eva_ hated him, and when I got punched you contacted the penetrators to stop the guys who'd done it. I couldn't even manage to punch a homophobe in the face."

It's funny.

Really, it's not funny, or it's not supposed to be funny, because Isak is so fucking sad and so fucking broken apart by all of this, but there's something in the way he says it, like that is somehow the epitome of everything he ever did wrong, that makes Isak snort.

"Are you laughing at me?"

"No, it's just-" Isak can't hide it. "I mean, a little bit, maybe?"

At first Jonas looks at him, raised brows, like it's out of place, the laughter, but then his eyes fall to Isak's lips, still spread in a smile, and he smiles, too.

"Fuck, you're an idiot," he says.

"I'm an idiot?" Isak asks. "If anyone's an idiot, it's you."

"What did I do now?" Jonas asks, but he's smiling now, he's smiling, and this is maybe the closest Isak has felt to him for a while, ever since he got with Mikael and Isak started building up his walls again. "I'm sitting here trying to apologize because I've felt guilty for years, and you'e laughing at me?"

"Come on," Isak says. "You've really been stressing about not being physically violent towards this random dude we bought skunk off in first grade? You're against violence." 

Now Isak's chuckling. 

"Jonas. You preach anti-violence."

"It's the principle of things."

"Shut up."

They're both chuckling, now, and when Isak watches him laugh he remembers why he liked him so much, and why he first fell in love with him. He remembers but he doesn't feel it, because he feels that for someone else, now.

Maybe that's something he can say out loud. If he can say it out loud to anyone, anyway, it's Jonas. So:

"It wasn't just because I weren't sure you'd be okay with it," he says, and Jonas's expression calms as he settles in to listen, but it doesn't grow quite as serious as it was before. "It was everything, you know? And also, I-"

He hesitates. But he wants to say it, so he goes on:

"I kind of had a thing for you."

Jonas raises his brows, but other than that, he doesn't particularly react. On one hand it feels like such a monumental thing to be finally saying out loud to the person who it's all about, but on the other hand it feels like maybe it's not that big of a deal.

Plenty of people used to have things for their best friends, and Jonas has always been so chill about everything.

"For me?" he says, eventually, and it's apparently as easy as that, as easy as coming out to him turned out to be. Maybe the lesson in all of this is that Isak thinks Jonas is the best person, and that Jonas is still actually better than that. "Really?"

"Yeah." Isak nods. "It was kind of how I found out, actually."

Huffing out a breath of surprise, Jonas smiles; slowly, and then wide.

"Wow," he says. "Me?"

"Gross, is this going to be an ego thing?"

"Of course it is," Jonas says. "You're my best friend, and you liked me?"

"Shut up."

Jonas laughs, and as Isak listens and watches it, he feels the tension of the last few weeks seeping out of him. His shoulders loosen, and his chest feels lighter, and his stomach no longer feels like it's tied together in knots, and Isak finally feels like maybe he can breathe again. Actually, really breathe, not just get a glimpse of it.

"But you-?" Jonas says, then, looking at him. "I mean, it seems like you like someone else now, right?"

It's like he's trying not to say the name on purpose, always giving Isak room to lay out his story himself, to control exactly what he wants to share, and going off of that.

Isak nods.

"Yeah," he says, leaning back in his seat, now, because finally he can relax, as he goes back to poking at his food. "I do."

Jonas nods, too, and while he does he's smiling.

"He's a good guy," he says, poking at his food, too, before he takes a bite and chews. "The two of you are a mess, though."

Isak, despite himself, laughs.

"What?"

"Yeah, all this drama, and for what?" Jonas says. "You're both clearly head over heels for each other, man."

"It's complicated."

"Oh, shut up." Isak laughs again, and Jonas laughs along with him, nudging his shoulder with his own, and maybe Isak's not in love with him anymore, but he really does love him. " _Is_ it complicated, though? Or how are you feeling now?"

How _is_ he feeling now? He's not quite sure, but he thinks that when the tension bled out of him, so did the raw parts of the wound that's been holding him back. Either way when he thinks of it now, of maybe, actually being with Even, then his chest fills with the same warmth that it did before, but with an absence of fear, too, that makes it that much stronger.

"I don't know," he says, but he's smiling. "I really, really like him, so..."

"Maybe it's that simple?"

"Easy for you to say," Isak says, but at the same time he does agree. Jonas just shrugs.

"But I'm right," he says. "Yeah?"

Isak shrugs, too, but then he nods.

"Yeah," he says. "You're probably right."

Their eyes meet.

It ached before, in Isak, to think that being Jonas's best friend was all he'd ever be, but he remembers, now, how important Jonas is to him as best friend, too. How much that really means, actually: _best_ friends. How sometimes that's an even bigger title than being someone's boyfriend.

"I, uh..." he tries, back to poking at his food now to avoid Jonas's gaze, because he's bad at these things, at saying them out loud, but Jonas should definitely hear it. "You weren't a bad friend."

He feels Jonas watching him, but doesn't look back yet.

"Actually, it really meant a lot to me that you were there."

"Yeah?" Jonas asks, almost hopeful, like it's all he wants, and Isak is still stumped by the kindness that the people in his life always show to him. "Of course I was there."

Isak shrugs, because it's not an of course to him, but it is in Jonas's world, so it would do no good to argue with him on that point.

"And I'm sorry," Jonas goes on, then, which surprises Isak a little. "That I didn't feel the same."

It's a little bit embarrassing, really, that he even has to say that, but at the same time Isak thinks he understands. Jonas worries about him, which means he's probably not too happy to know that part of the pain Isak was dealing with was there because of him; out of his control, but still unequivocally tied to him.

Instead of saying anything, then, Isak just nods, and their eyes meet again. 

For a moment, while they do, everything that's happened between them, and everything from Isak's past, sits there strung out between them, not actually spoken out loud but acknowledged none the less. 

Then Jonas smiles, and Isak follows, and maybe it's okay.

While they finish their food Magnus texts Jonas, and, after they've finished, then, they meet up with Magnus and Mahdi, too, planning to go to the skate park together.

"Do you know they kissed last Friday while they were both completely hammered?" Jonas says, just before they arrive.

"No? What?"

"Yeah," Jonas says, chuckling. "None of them liked it."

Isak snorts.

"I think Mags has been in a, like, how-do-I-move-on-with-my-life-after-Vilde-cisis. Apparently, for him, it's not falling in love with a close friend that'll do the job. The latests update, as I hear it, is that he's asked Yousef to help him get a job in a kindergarten and is considering changing schools to study teaching instead."

"Wow," Isak says, surprised. "Why have I heard none of this?"

"You've been kind of missing in action lately," Jonas says. "But we've been missing you, man."

Isak smiles. And he's good at isolating himself when things get tough, but this time around, the moment he's been ready to face the world again, everyone have still been right there. Not gone, but staying.

"As soon as you're ready to be a part of everything again, we have your spot waiting for you, is what I'm trying to say," Jonas says. "Just say the word."

"Okay. Thank you."

Jonas nods.

"Of course," he says. "We're friends." 

*

When Isak comes home that evening, Noora and Vilde are sitting in the kitchen, talking over Vilde's phone which they're both looking at as they eat. The kettle is boiling on the kitchen counter. When they catch sight of him, they both smile.

"Isak," Vilde says, that excited voice she still uses sometimes that Isak is not sure he'll ever love, but also doesn't mind as much anymore. "Come sit down. We're looking through Tinder."

"Oh?" 

"Yeah." It's Noora, who gets up when the kettle finishes boiling, and goes to the counter to fetch cups – three of them, without Isak even having to ask – that she dumps tea-bags into and pours water over. "Vilde here finally got the courage to change her setting to girls, so..."

"Ah." Isak smiles. "I see."

"Well, it's perfectly normal for that whole thing to take a while," Vilde says. "Sana said so."

As Noora sets the tea-cups on the table in front of them, Isak tries not to chuckle about the fact that, to Vilde, Sana is apparently the authority on all such things, although she's the only one of them who's actually currently in a relationship with a man. Noora catches Isak's eye, and smiles at him about her.

"Of course it is," she says, still, returning to the chair next to Vilde and drawing her into a halfway embrace with an arm around her shoulders. 

She's kind in a way that Isak has always really liked. At times he's been grumpy with her, and at times she's been grumpy with him, and at first they weren't so close. But then, a few years ago, she apologized to him for apparently gossiping about his sexuality, and Isak sat in the living room with her and Eskild when she cried about William and then told them she thought she might be gay, and a little after that he got to know about her family situation.

It felt the same as when he found out about Vilde's, or Eva's, or even Eskild's: instant solidarity. There's something about having been a parentified child that connects you in inexplicable ways.

"And also, it–" Vilde goes on, breaking off as she fiddles with the string of her teabag, dipping it in and out of the water even though, at this point, it's not really doing anything. "With the whole Mamma thing, it's..."

She pauses. Isak looks at her.

"Been difficult."

So that must have been what they were talking about the other week.

There's a moment of silence, strung out a little awkwardly between them, because they're all as resistant to sharing as they are traumatized, but then Noora chuckles, soft breath, and squeezes Vilde close again.

"Tell me about it," she says, and Isak chuckles, too. When they both look at him, he shrugs.

"Tell me about it," he says. Casually. Like it's not actually that painful anymore.

After drinking his cup of tea and remembering to thank Noora for it, he fishes out his phone and sends an apology text to Eva, before he heads down the hallway and towards Eskild's door as well, which he knocks on, and opens when Eskild calls out his okay.

"Are you decent?" he asks, still holding onto the handle to be able to quickly close the door again. From his bed, laptop in his lap, Eskild scoffs.

"Would I have told you to come in if I wasn't, baby Jesus?" he asks, and it's been delicate these last few days, probably more to due with Isak's hesitance than anything else, so Isak's never been as grateful for the nickname as he is now. "What's up? You here to apologize for the twentieth time?"

"Not twentieth," Isak says, but Eskild waves the protest away. Isak shrugs.

"No. Just wanted to, uh... formally tell you that I like someone." Eskild smiles, biting his lip like it's funny but he's trying not to show it. Isak rolls his eyes. "You know who it is."

"Okay."

"I know it's weird, it's just... you like this kind of stuff. So..." Isak shrugs, looking at his socked feet on Eskild's floorboards because he's not sure he'll ever get over how difficult it is to try and offer something this vulnerable and honest without wanting a little bit to hide. "Olive branch, I guess."

It's a mumble, but when he looks up Eskild is smiling like he heard. 

"You're a very sweet boy, Isak," he says, and Isak rolls his eyes. 

"Whatever," he says. But Eskild still smiles.

When he comes out into the hallway again Noora is letting Sana in through the front door. When Isak's gotten her alone, she speaks first.

"I don’t mind, you know," she says. "Or I know it’s not about me. It’s just…"

It's just that she shared everything with him, probably, back when she was having a hard time, and that she must be hurt if she thinks Isak doesn't trust her the same way that she trusts him.

"You're a good friend, Sana," he says.

That surprises her, it looks like, which reminds him that he should be better at telling her these things. That maybe people should be better at doing that in general.

After a moment, however, she smiles.

"Okay," she says, pleased, and he's relieved to know that he's still able to make her happy. "Are you joining us tonight?"

"No. I think I need to go talk to Even."

"Oh?"

The surprise is horribly acted.

"Come on, you knew I liked him."

"Uh–" Now she's clearly pulling at threads, trying not to show her cards, but she's bad at it, and he laughs, first time in a while it's felt as free as it does now. Watching him laugh, she eventually smiles, too. "Okay, I did."

"Mm-hm. You're a bad liar."

"Shut up."

They both laugh, before they smile, at each other. Isak squeezes her shoulder before he goes.

Back in his room, a little later, he fishes out his phone again and goes into his messaging thread with Even, where the last message Even sent about being willing to try is still sitting, unanswered and accusing. Only it doesn't feel accusing anymore, it feels hopeful, and it makes Isak smile.

Shifting his phone in his grasp, he gets ready to type:

"Hey. Are you up?"

It's Wednesday, way past ten pm. He gets a reply back almost immediately.

"Yeah," it says. "You okay?"

"I'm okay," he writes back. "Can I come over? And talk?"

There's a long pause between when the read receipt appears and the bubbles of Even's replying. Isak hopes it was a good one. When the new text arrives, it's long.

"Really?" it says. "Yes, of course. I think the others will be sleeping by then, but if you call me when you're here we can talk outside before we go up?"

"Okay," Isak writes back. "On my way then."

When Even texts back, it's a heart. Red.

Once Isak's standing on the street outside of his apartment building, jacket on but still a little cold because he walked all the way here, trying to gather himself, that's what he's thinking of. Then he fishes his phone out of his pocket, finds Even's number, and calls it.

"Hey," Even says, when he picks up.

"Hi. Are they sleeping?"

"Yes." There's some commotion on the other end, floorboards creaking and Even breathing and some rustling of fabric. "Hold on, I'll be coming down. Two seconds."

"Mm. Nothing that people say two seconds about, actually ever takes two seconds."

On the other end of the line there's the softest of chuckles, so quiet that maybe Isak wasn't even meant to hear it.

"Oh, you're one of those people?" Even says then, as Isak hears the sound of a door closing on his end of the line, before he hears his footsteps on the stairs, too. When he speaks again his voice sounds more echoey than it did before. "I don't know if I wanna come meet you then."

"You're already on your way."

This time when Even chuckles it's louder, loud enough for Isak to be sure that it was meant to be shared this time.

"Never too late to turn around," he says.

"Do you want to turn around?"

"No." Just as he says it, Isak watches Even appear at the bottom of the last stairwell. Through the glass they smile at each, and Even takes the last few steps down slowly. "I'm here."

"Yes, I can see that."

Through the glass Even rolls his eyes, but he comes closer, too, gentle smile on his face as his gaze flits between Isak's eyes like he's studying him.

After a second, he puts his palm on the glass, un-gloved, so Isak can see the lines in it. For a second he just watches it, before he lifts his own to meet it, pressing close to the other side of the glass; almost touching but not quite.

"Hey," Even says, again, much softer this time.

"Hi."

"Are you okay?" Isak nods. "Okay."

"Are you?" Isak asks, and Even nods.

"Yeah."

He's wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, and his hair is washed free of product, falling softly into his forehead in a way that makes Isak want to brush it off of it.

He's wearing a jacket, too, and shoes, but he's making no movements to stop what they're doing right now and meet him outside. Instead they stand there for long enough that the light in the hallway goes out.

"I don't do this normally," Isak says, because he might as well jump into it. "I mean, I know I said that already, but- I usually do everything alone."

Just like Jonas did before, Even looks like he recognises what Isak is saying.

"Okay," he says.

"And this is kind of difficult for me."

That's what the whole thing has been circling around. How hard it is for Isak to let himself have this, despite the fact that it's everything that he wants. But this is something. Saying it out loud is something, because saying it out loud is hopeful; it's acknowledging it and hoping for the chance to change.

Even's expression softens, and then, slowly, he smiles.

"But you're here," he says, and Isak, struck by the gravity of that, smiles, too.

"But I'm here," he agrees. On the other side of the glass, Even shifts, like he's trying to get closer.

"Did I tell you," he asks, a whisper now, "that I changed my mind about thinking the best love stories are tragedies?"

Shaking his head, Isak is struck by the gravity of that, too; the monumentality of the thing Even is trying to say. _Love._

"What's a good love story, then?" 

A beat, and then Even's gaze moves from his eyes to their hands, still pressed together palm to palm, with the glass between them. Isak smiles.

The glass between them is a barrier, but it's a barrier it's easy to get rid of.

"Open the door," he says.

Even's gaze moves back to his, smile sitting in that, too, and then he slides his hand away and moves it to the door-handle instead.

He opens the door.

For a second they just stand there, both smiling as they watch each other, no barrier between them, and then Isak takes a step forward, another step, another step, until he's right in the middle of Even's space, palm no longer to the glass but to his cheek, before he angles his chin just right, and then-

Kisses him.

Finally, finally, kisses him.

A second later Even breaks out into a grin against his lips, and Isak breaks out into a grin, too, fingers deep in his hair and their foreheads pressed together, as they take a moment to smile. 

"You gave me a movie moment," Even whispers, awe in his voice and fingertips on his cheeks like he's magic, and the laugh just bubbles out of Isak, quiet but so, so real, as he touches Even's cheeks back and shakes his head.

"Shh," he says, and Even grins, too. "Just kiss me back."

"Okay."

He does. Hands on Isak's cheeks, softly, softly, he finally does.

After, Isak hugs him. 

It's tight, because he needs it to be, and Even understands enough, it seems, to hug him tightly back, and then they're standing there hugging at the foot of his last staircase, and Isak feels vulnerable, and wrecked, and relieved; so overwhelmingly relieved.

Okay, he thinks. Okay.

Everything is okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> around 50k before the first kiss counts as a slow-burn, right?
> 
> also asdfgh i wrote this and i'm so excited by it. they finally kissed?? it's taken almost a month to get to this chapter? wow!! 
> 
> did you like all the sad bits? the jonas conversation? the noora and vilde one? jonas’s guilt? (i thought it was interesting to have not just isak and even stuck on something from the past, but jonas and mikael, too) the kiss???
> 
> tell me your thoughts in the comments please!!! i always love to hear from you


	10. EVEN ⚬ Spare key

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! can you believe this is the last time in this story that i'll say hi? i can't. it'll be so sad to let go of these guys, but if we have to, then lets go out with a bang and some fluff, yeah? 
> 
> (sidenote: you should have seen me when i realized i'd structured this in a way that meant i'd have to dive into even's very-deeply-and-newly-in-love-with-isak-brain. it's a lot. they're both truly a lot)
> 
> enjoy!!

They're kissing.

It's night, Isak just came running, and they're kissing. They're lying close in Even's bed, duvet pulled up to their shoulders because it's cold, bony knees bumping into each other and little smiles exchanged between them, pressed into it when their lips meet.

Even can't quite believe that Isak is actually here. That he gets to do this now, rub his thumb across Isak's cheek, and nudge the tip of his nose with his own, and card his free hand through his hair.

And kiss him. Just kiss him.

Isak is smiling into their kisses, and Isak is touching him back, too, fingers in his hair as he leans in close, and keeps leaning in close, tilting his chin up to ask for kisses that Even gives, soft, soft, soft, because he only wants to be soft with him.

It all bleeds together, but eventually, at one point, they both scoot back a little on their pillows so they can look into each other's eyes.

Isak is lit by the moonlight coming in through the window over the bed, and Even isn't even thinking about it, just suddenly finds the back of his knuckle brushing over Isak's cheek, before he brushes his thumb across Isak's eyebrow, his cheek, his chin, his bottom lip.

Isak, slowly, smiles.

"What's wrong with your nose?" Even whispers, a little while later. 

They've stopped kissing, now, and instead he's brushing his fingers through Isak's hair and watching Isak's eyelids grow heavy, like maybe he'll fall asleep soon. He's still awake enough to lean into Even's touch, though, and Even pays attention to that, the way he soaks it up like he loves it; like maybe he's craved it, too.

"I was born without cartilage," he whispers back. "Some babies are."

"Nerd."

It's still a whisper. Isak's breath of amusement that he huffs out is the softest thing.

Even is definitely in love with him.

Leaning in, he brushes the tip of his nose along the bridge of Isak's, back and forth and up and down, slow, slow, and tender, before he kisses both sides of it, and Isak smiles again, breath huffed out of his nose, now.

"Weird," he whispers, and they both smile.

He's so open. It surprises Even, because he was so scared of this, but he thinks maybe there’s something defiant in it. Determined. Like Isak is refusing to not be this way.

Eventually his eyelids drop closed, and his breathing turns quiet while Even keeps touching his hair.

"Sleep?" Even asks, as gently as he can make it, and Isak hums out a confirmation. "Come closer."

Isak does. Scoots over, legs over Even’s thigh and head on his chest, hand curled loosely around his waist.

"Night," he says, a mumble into Even’s chest. Even keeps touching him, fingertips down his back and hand carding through his hair.

"Night, Is," he says, a whisper, too, but Isak is already asleep. Even smiles.

Okay, he thinks, lying back and closing his eyes, too. It's all okay.

*

Before everything that happened, happened, Even loved relationships. The romance, the softness, the loyalty, the chance to spoil someone else just to see them smile. The traditions. The Sunday morning cuddling, or the Thursday evening cooking, or the shows you start together. 

For a while that love was overclouded by fear. But now, with Isak, he's excited by it all again.

The next morning they bail on their classes to stay home instead, and Even cooks them breakfast, everything, eggs and bacon, as Isak sits on the counter in last night's t-shirt and Even's sweatpants – Even’s _sweatpants_ – and watches.

"Can I help?" he asks, while Even is dumping some sour cream into the egg-mixture.

"How much are you counting on the fact that I'll say no?" Even asks, and Isak scoffs, using his socked foot to nudge Even's back, which is so delightful that Even grins.

"Excuse me, I can cook."

"Mm."

"I could help."

"Mm." Isak kicks him in the back again, and Even, still grinning, turns around to face him. "You could help."

Instead of replying to that, seemingly not caring anymore, Isak beckons Even closer with a nod of his head, and when Even goes, because of course he does, he uses his legs and his arms to pull him in even closer.

Even touches his hips and kisses his cheek and rests their foreheads together.

"Do you know that you insist a lot on things that aren't true?" he asks.

Isak laughs, the cutest fucking giggle, and Even revels in the fact that he's allowed to watch it now, and allows to want to kiss it, too. Isak’s knee presses into Even’s waist, bony, and Even’s are weak.

"Shut up," Isak says, but softly, before he crowds in even closer, and lifts his chin so Even kisses him.

They make out for a while. More than a while, really.

Before they pull apart completely Even kisses his cheek again, just because until now it's kept making him smile. It does now, too, so he does it again, and Isak rolls his eyes.

"What?"

"You keep kissing my face," he says.

"Yeah, because it's so cute." Isak scoffs, but blushes, too. "Eh? You liked that."

"No, I didn't."

"Mm-hm." It's a sceptical sound. "You did."

Isak just looks at him, faux-annoyed at first, but then growing softer instead, heavy-lidded and melted in a way Even can't quite believe is because of him.

"Hm? You'll admit it?"

"Kiss me," Isak says, and maybe it shouldn't be that easy to rope Even's interest away from the subject, but it really, really is. Of course it is.

He kisses him. 

Well: 

For the rest of that morning, he doesn't really stop.

*

That first day Mutta and Adam is at work, so they spend it entirely to themselves, just getting to know what they're like now that they can kiss and touch and be honest with each other and themselves.

It's Isak who brings up the subject of how they're going to tell people, and Even is once again amazed that, now that he's made the choice, there's nothing left holding him back from being fully in this.

In the end all they do is send some texts. Even texts the boys and Sonja and his parents, and Isak texts his boys, too, as well as Sana, Eva, his roommates and his mum.

When Mutta and Adam come home that evening, it's with grins and hugs and excitement, and Even sends a little kind thought towards the fact that Isak had to go home for a moment so he's not here for this, because even though he loves them, it's a little bit embarrassing.

At night, he goes to Isak's place to sleep over. 

In the kitchen Noora and Eva are kissing, Isak is arguing about something with Sana, and Vilde is talking to Chris, but, when Even arrives and Isak grins, glances to him instead. Once everyone else has left, she stays.

Isak, by Even's side, now, turns to her with raised brows, and Vilde squares up her shoulder.

"Uh," she says, hesitant. "I just wanted to apologize."

When Even raises his brows, too, questioning, she looks away. Eventually it's Isak who speaks:

"About–?" he asks, and she nods. He turns to Even, hand on his back, and nods towards her. "She's the one who told me the rumor." 

"Oh."

"I just wanted to say sorry," she goes on, quickly, like she's worried he won't let her. "I've had rumors spread about me before too, and they were true, but–"

She shrugs, glancing up to meet his eye, and he gets it. They were true, but that's the reason why they were so hurtful. Because they take something about your life that's supposed to be your own and spreads it around so it isn't. 

"Anyway, I should have kept my mouth shut. It's private business, and it's yours."

He smiles. 

It's always felt like someone else’s. Mikael's, or the world's, or belonging to a version of him who he couldn't recognize, because the whole thing made him unrecognizable with grief, even to himself. But it's his, and maybe it's haunting him a little less now. Maybe Vilde’s apology helps.

"What happened with you?" Isak asks, light tone, and Even is grateful for how casually he approaches this; lightly, like it's not that big of a deal. "Where is this coming from?"

"Sana," Vilde says, and Isak laughs. Even chuckles, too, and Vilde looks at him, immediately, and she looks so worried that he decides right there and then to just meet her gaze and shrug. 

"Thanks for the apology," he says, and means it. A little hesitant, she smiles.

The next day him and Isak go to uni together.

They take the tram together first, and then the walk from the tram to campus, during which Even reaches out to take Isak’s hand. At first Isak bites his lip, like maybe he's trying to contain a smile, but then he intertwines their fingers, too.

Even’s whole chest is on fire for him.

When they make it to Isak’s building, he uses their grasp to pull Isak in closer and kiss him. They end up against the brick wall, hands intertwined as they make out for a while, until eventually they pull away again to look at each other.

"Are we meeting up for lunch?" Isak asks.

"No, I’m meeting up with one of my other many boyfriends."

Isak rolls his eyes, and Even grins. 

"Why? You’ll miss me?"

"No," Isak says.

"I’ll miss you, too."

Isak chuckles brightly, face falling against Even’s, and Even is thriving. He's actually in love and thriving, like he was worried he'd never be able to again, but like he so easily is.

"I want to see you at lunch," Isak says.

"Okay. You’ll see me at lunch."

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hm. Where else would I be?"

"I don't know. With one of your many other boyfriends?" 

He’s teasing and Even giggles, because he loves it when Isak plays along. 

"No," he says, still, leaning their faces together again, hand brushing through Isak’s hair so Isak’s expression grows soft. "You're the only one."

He means it. Means that there were other people before, but that Isak is the only one, now. That it's all Isak, and only him.

Isak smiles, pink cheeks and pleased expression, and Even kisses him again.

When he eventually arrives at his lecture hall, Mikael is waiting for him outside like he always is, two cups of coffee in hand, and Even is still grinning. 

"Calm down, " Mikael says, as soon as he’s within ear-shot. "I haven’t even asked you about him yet, and you’re already smiling."

Impossibly, Even’s grin widens.

"I’m in love," he says, into their greeting hug, and Mikael, throwing his head back, laughs. "Mikael. I’m so in love."

"Yes, I can see that."

"I'm serious. I don’t know how I’m going to concentrate today." Mikael keeps smiling, this time shaking his head. "You’ll have to take good notes in the lecture and let me borrow them later."

Mikael laughs again.

"Fine, loverboy," he says. "Just this once, I will."

As they make their way inside the lecture hall he reaches up to rub Even’s shoulder, too, squeezing it, and Even smiles. Once they’re sitting down, he hands Even one of the cups of coffee. Then:

"Do you want to hear something cool?" he asks.

"Always, yes."

"I came out."

"What?" 

That’s a surprise to Even, and he turns to Mikael immediately, assessing him. Mikael is grinning.

"To your parents?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

Mikael is still smiling.

"And it was fine," he says, and Even, immediately, is filled with relief.

"Oh, Mikael," he says, smiling now, too. "That’s so good."

"Yeah." Mikael nods, emotion in his voice, like he’s full of relief, too, and Even reaches out to pull him into a halfway embrace where they’re sitting in their seats, because he can’t not. "And they like him, actually. Jonas. They said it was nice to see him at the mosque."

Even was jealous before, that’s true, but now he’s just happy to know that Mikael has someone who’s so clearly on his side. Now he's just happy that he's not the only one who's trying to move on from everything that happened between them before and all the wounds it made.

"Of course they did," he says, and means it, rubbing Mikael’s back. "He’s great."

”Yeah.”

"I’m happy for you."

Pulling out of their hug, Mikael nods.

"I’m happy for you," he says.

With their eyes meeting, they both smile.

Later Even gets a text from Isak with a screenshot of his Facebook relationship status and a question mark, too, and a smiles. At first he teases him a bit, tells him he’s supposed to actually listen in his lectures, but then he goes onto Facebook himself, finds his relationship status, and changes it first. 

A few seconds later, Isak sends him a red heart.

"Big news on Facebook," Even says, nudging Mikael’s shoulder to show him what just happened. He grins. And later, in the evening, he texts Even that his status is changed, too. From single to dating Jonas.

He’s out. There’s still some options for plausible deniability, but in the grand scheme of things he’s out.

Even sends him a heart, too, before he shows Isak his screen. They’re spending the night together again.

*

That Friday, they all go out to the regular bar again, but this time everything has changed. Still, just like usually, they play billiard.

"So, what's the deal now?" Isak asks, as he's gathering up the balls and placing them in the triangle in the middle of the table, preparing the table for them to play. "We're dating, so you'll let me win?"

Even scoffs.

"No," he says, and Isak glances at him over his shoulder with raised brows. "I'm not going to let you do anything."

"Aw, really?" Isak says, turning around to face him now and adopting his teasing tone. "What am I dating you for, then?"

He's being cheeky, and Even is loving it.

"My good looks?" he says, playing along. "My James Dean charm? My cool, suave-"

Isak frowns, sceptically.

"What? You don't think I'm cool?"

"Well." It's a dragged-out, doubtful sound. Isak tilts his head, considering. "Maybe from a distance?"

"A distance?" 

"Mm-hm."

"Are you just saying that to be nice?"

"I never say anything to just be nice," Isak says.

"Oh, right." Forgetting about the game for a second, Even takes the opportunity to crowd Isak up against the billiard table, moving in closer, palms to the edge of it besides Isak's hips, as Isak slings his arms around his neck. "I forgot."

"Hm."

Even's quickly learned that there's a particular, heavy-lidded look that Isak wears when he's done with talking and wants to be kissed instead. He's wearing it now and pulling Even in closer by the back of his neck.

Even obliges.

Isak always looks good, but he's wearing dark, tight jeans today, and this button-up shirt that makes him looks pretty, and Even really, kind of wants to touch. They're in public, though, so he doesn't, but he presses his thumb into Isak's cheek instead, causing his mouth to open, and makes the kiss deep.

"You've never worn this kind of shirt before," he says later, not really pulling back but just ceasing to kiss, so that his lips still move across Isak's when he speaks. Isak, hands in his hair, hums out a non-committal sound. "Do you think maybe we're going to have sex for the first time tonight?"

Isak snorts, rolling his eyes, but there’s a blush to his cheeks, too.

"Just because you said that I'm going to become celibate," he says, and this time Even laughs.

"Alright," he says. "That's fine. Just wanted to tell you you're hot, though."

"You're such a fucking flirt."

"Mm."

Grinning, Even leans in to kiss him, and, with a hand to his neck and the hair there, Isak kisses him back, pulling him in closer, and closer, and closer, and although they were both teasing it's pretty simple for Even to tell that they're both really into it.

It lasts a while, Even getting lost in it, until suddenly Isak pulls away, stopping Even from moving in again by placing a palm on his chest. When he speaks, it's with something playful in his eyes.

"I thought we were going to play?" he asks. "Or no?"

There's that fucking cockiness that Even is in love with, too.

"You still owe me a kiss on the cheek from when I won last Friday," he says.

Isak just smiles before he leans in and presses his lips to Even's cheekbones, softly, softly, which would be sweet if not for the fact that he's definitely doing it to tease and definitely knows that he has Even wrapped around his little finger completely.

"There," he says, before he ducks out from under Even's arm and out of his embrace, ending up on the other side of the table instead.

When their eyes meet, he grins. The goddamn tease.

In the end, Isak wins again, but Even hardly even notices, because he's kind of too busy staring at him instead.

After they've played, they settle back down around the table with the others, Even's arm slung over Isak's shoulders and their sides pressed together, as Isak falls into some sort of half-grumpy argument with Mahdi and Magnus that lasts until Magnus says something that makes him laugh, all giggly, which makes Even filled with fondness for him.

It's just the four of them until Mutta and Adam come back with beers.

Adam settles in on his and Isak's side of the table, making Isak scoot in closer to him, which Even considers thanking him for, and Mutta settles in on the other side, throwing an arm around Magnus who he seems to have struck up some sort of loud and tactile friendship with.

"What?" he says, when he catches Even looking. "You two lover-boys are not the only ones who can embrace and be sickingly cute all over the place."

"You think we're cute?" Even asks, and Mutta raises his brows like it's a stupid question, but it's Adam who speaks:

"I'm pretty sure that billiard table's been traumatised by the two of you practically getting it on all over it."

"Shut up," Even says, as everyone else laughs. Adam just reaches out across Isak to give his shoulder a squeeze.

It's nice, though, Even thinks. It's nice to be in love, and to get to share it, and it's nice to have someone to be spacing out and thinking about touching. It's nice.

Later, then, before they leave, Sonja arrives with some of her friends because Even invited her, and when he hugs her and everyone else says hi it's the first time since long before they broke up that she's actually been integrated into the group of boys. No longer set apart, something undefinable or strange between them, but this: two exes who decided to stay in each other's lives; once lovers and now friends.

When she goes to the bar to buy a beer he joins her for a moment to talk, and she raises her brows at him, nodding back towards where Isak is sitting in a booth with Elias, Adam and Mahdi, grumpy expression on his face as they talk. Even grins just looking at him.

"Wow," she says, amused. "I was going to ask if that was him, but I guess I don't need to."

"Shut up." She snorts, and shrugs, too. "What about you?"

She shifts and looks behind him, so there's definitely something. He turns to glance behind himself.

"Be discreet," she protests, slapping his shoulder, and he laughs as he turns back around to face her. She rolls her eyes. "Jesus."

"Who is it?"

"The tall one," she says. "Dark skin, white t-shirt. He’s in business school.“

"Hm. He’s muscular," Even says, looking at the guy in question, and when he turns back to her again she's nodding, biting her lip. He chuckles. "You're so into that."

She shrugs.

"Who wouldn't be?" she says, turning back to the bar to receive the tray of beers the bartender just tried to hand them, before she takes one of them in her free hand and nods towards the tray for Even to take one, too. "He's hot."

When Even holds up his beer she rolls her eyes, but a moment later she still brings her own to it, cheering.

"He's hot," Even agrees. 

When she leaves his side a little later, to join the boy and the rest of her friends with the tray of beers, Even finds Isak from across the room, who's laughing at something Adam said now, in that loud way of his that delights Even more than anything. 

Isak finishes laughing and then, like maybe he can tell he's being watched, shifts his gaze from Adam and up, up, to find Even. 

Their eyes meet.

There's something so special about it: knowing that, at the end of the day, it's each other's eyes they meet across the room before they nod towards the door with their heads, _let's go home together now, just us, just us and no one else_.

Half an hour later Isak is closing the front door to his apartment, before Even nudges him up against it and kisses him. 

"Eager," Isak says.

"Well, you've been teasing me all night." Chuckling, Isak raises his brows in question, and Even raises his own back. "The game, the flirting, _will you get me a beer_ while fiddling with my shirt?"

"Oh, that," Isak says, and Even scoffs. 

"Oh, that," he repeats, voice high with his amusement, and Isak grins before he shrugs, all cheeky. "Is that how it's going to be, huh? Me wrapped around your little finger, tending to your every whim, and cooking you food, and, I don't know, giving you scalp massages, while you study to become a doctor and save us all?"

”Yeah,” Isak says, and Even shakes his head, but leans in to kiss him again.

Once they’re inside his room they help each other get their shirts off, their jeans, before they help each other to the bed, too, where Even crawls in over Isak and kisses him.

They take their time. 

At first they make out for a while, boxers still on and Isak’s palms roaming over Even’s back, when they’re not in Even’s hair or intertwined with Even’s above his own head. Eventually, however, the mood shifts, and Isak begins chasing Even's thigh with his hips, as both of their breaths grow heavier, too.

"Even," Isak says, urgently, and Even kisses down his chest.

He loves this. He teases, and he touches, and he kisses him, and he notes the things that make Isak gasp or go breathless or make noises, because it’s all about trying his best to make Isak feel good.

When he comes back up, eventually, Isak’s hair is a mess, falling into his forehead, and his cheeks are brightly flushed, his lips open as he breathes heavily and reaches out for Even to beckon him closer.

Behind him the sheets have come out of the corners they were once tucked into, rumpled with their movements instead, and Even is overwhelmed by him but when he’s back in Isak’s arms, it’s Isak who reaches up to brush the hair off his forehead, reverent expression on his face, like Even’s the magical one.

"Even," he says, then, chest lifting towards him on a roll of his shoulder, and the mood shifts again.

After, they both lie back smiling at each other, before they giggle, too, and Even turns back towards him, palm on his cheek.

"That was pretty good."

"Yeah, that was pretty good."

When they kiss again, it's mostly smile.

Eventually, after they’ve cleaned themselves up and brushed their teeth, they’re back in the bed, lying on their sides to look at each other.

This time the window is open above them, moonlight streaming in, and this time they’re reaching out to touch each other’s faces.

Even touches Isak's eyebrow with his thumb, traces the curve of his bottom lip, watches him blink slowly like he's both content and relaxed. Isak parts his lips to kiss the ball of the thumb, and when Even smiles, he smiles, tenderness all over his gaze. 

"Is a little over a week or so too early to say that I'm in love with you?" Even asks, and traces the curve of Isak's cheeks when they form around his smile, so, so wide. When Even cups one of them, grinning, too, Isak shifts in closer.

"It's the post-sex hormones," he says, still, but not like he really believes it.

"Did we have sex this morning?" Even asks. "Because I felt it then, too."

Isak just keeps smiling, looking down and avoiding Even's gaze like he still does sometimes, but did a lot more before. 

"What happened with that, anyway?" he asks, then, instead of replying, which only makes Even more endeared. "With the love thing, I mean, and you changing your mind?"

Even sighs, remembering, but as he's lying here now, still tracing patterns over Isak's cheek with a fingertip, it feels so far away. 

"I was sick," he says, quietly, and Isak's only reaction is to focus on him with more intent. "Sort of made me feel like the bad stuff was my only option. And I was scared that I wouldn’t know how to be different.“

Isak takes a moment to consider that, it seems, keeping his gaze locked with Even's but staying silent, and Even knows that he's not always careful, but he's still so careful with this. 

"It's not," he says, then. Simply. "And you can."

Even smiles.

It’s few words, but they're the only ones that are really needed.

"It's not," he says, too. "And I can."

After taking another moment to carefully watch him, Isak is the one to lean in, slowly, slowly, palm on his cheek, and brush the tip of his nose across the bridge of Even's, before he angles in and kisses him, too.

"There's something I need to tell you," Even says, after Isak pulls back again, not because he wants to say it, but because he doesn't want to give it the power that a secret or something unspoken has, eating everyone up and eroding away at trust and affection, like it did with him and Mikael, and with him and Sonja, too. "A sad thing. But before I say it you should know that it's in the past now, and that I'm better, and that it's– that I'm okay, now."

Once again Isak reaches out to fix the hair behind his ears, caring for him with this quiet, kind determination that Even marvels at.

"Okay," he says. "But if you don't want to say it, I can guess."

"You can?"

"Pills?" he asks, and it's that easy. When Even nods his gaze turns sad, but he doesn't look away. "Okay."

"I just felt like nothing in my life was right anymore," Even says, explaining for the first time. "The only frame of reference I had for something like that was horrible and tragic and lonely, and I was sure I'd ruined it with Mikael and with Sonja and with my future, too, because I had to drop out of school. And I guess I just thought I was doomed to a miserable life, or one that it would be too difficult to make better, and so I didn't–"

He's never said any of this out loud before.

"And so I just gave up." 

Isak nods, jaw squared like he's trying not to cry, but he's so brave, he's so brave: he keeps looking back.

"But you don't still feel like that?" he asks.

"No." Even can say that with certainty now. "I don't still feel like that."

A pause, and then:

"No pressure, or anything."

It's not funny but it is, because if there's one thing Even has learned, it's that sad things are so ridiculous that sometimes they're funny, too. Isak smiles.

"Not funny," he says, but not like he means it. 

Even smiles, too.

"My dad left," Isak says, then.

It's not new information, and for a moment Even thinks he might say something else, but he doesn't.

"I know," he says, because he does. "You told me."

"I know. Just–" A pause. "It's not that I don't have people, it's just that when things get hard I usually try to deal with them myself. That's–"

Another pause.

"He left and that's the consequence. For me, I mean."

It's not a lot of information, but from Isak's expression it seems like it's meaningful. Like what he's saying right now really matters.

"Okay," Even says. "Should you talk to him about that?"

"No." Isak shakes his head, and Even keeps touching him, hoping for it to be soothing. He can understand a little, he thinks, but not from experience, because he's always had good parents, so he might never be able to understand completely. He can listen, though, and he will. "I don't want to need him to be able to move on and change shit. I didn't need him when I came out, either."

"You want to do it alone?"

"No."

Isak shakes his head again, before he reaches out to let his fingertips dance over Even's shoulder, down his collarbone and up to neck, where it becomes a flat palm as he lifts his gaze to make their eyes meet. There's a sort of intent in it, and it dawns on Even what he's saying. 

He grins.

"You want to do it with me?" he asks, and Isak shoves at Even's shoulder lightly, but he blushes, too, so it must be true. "You do."

"And other people."

"Mm."

"Like Eskild and my friends."

Even tugs him closer again, hand in his hair and forehead to his, and even though Isak was just denying him he now turns soft, face resting against his and palm to his cheek.

"And me?" Even asks, and this time Isak's eyes don't move; just stay right there, watching him with warmth.

"And you," he whispers, and Even grins, wide, nudging their faces more firmly together, nose aligned with nose and foreheads meeting. 

He wants to tell Isak that he might be difficult to be with. 

He wants to be a little self-deprecating about it, actually, because he’s still dealing with the guilt of everything and he’s still working through it all. Wants to say _maybe you could find someone better for that,_ or _maybe you’re better than me,_ or _maybe I can't be anything but a mess._

He doesn’t.

He’s in love but he’s not lucky enough to have the kind of life where you can pretend that that magically fixes everything. In fact he knows exactly what could happen when you think it can fix things it can’t or, worse yet, expect it to. It’s not like everything is easy now.

But he’s trying.

He’s trying to learn how to be kinder to himself, and how to make healthy choices, and he’s trying to take this chance at something good because he’s trying to think he’s allowed to.

"I’ll have an episode at some point," he ends up saying instead, tone more serious than it was before, and Isak grows more serious as well, but all he does is nod. Still touching Even’s hair.

"I know," he says. "We need to talk about what you need me to do when that happens."

He says it so easily, like he’s already thought about this, and Even smiles slowly, filled with awe about how Isak so uncomplicatedly places himself by Even’s side, offering himself as a partner to do things with.

"We’ll figure it out," Isak goes on, meeting his eyes and touching his cheek. "I’ve actually tried to do some research."

He’s smiling, now, because it’s funny, and Even thinks he’s amazing, so Even leans in closer.

"But I want to talk to you."

"Isak."

Isak still looks so tender.

"And I don't think a little over a week is too soon. Not for me, anyway."

A beat of a smile, and then Even kisses him. 

Kisses him because he’s so relieved, and because he’s okay, now, and because Isak makes him feel like they’re in this together and like they actually have a decent shot at making this work. 

Because he wants this to work. Because he really, really, really thinks that he could love Isak for the longest time, and that Isak could love him back, and because he’s hopeful, for once. Actually, genuinely hopeful.

"You’re so romantic," he says.

"Are you surprised? "

"I’m happy."

Isak smiles, slowly, the smile that Even is learning to recognize as fond. He leans in closer, too.

"Me, too," he says.

Once they’ve kissed again and both pulled back, Isak makes himself heavy on his chest, asking for an embrace which Even gives him, arms around his back and a kiss to the top of his hair. 

It's quiet. It's calm.

It just might be the peace that Even has spent so long longing for.

*

A month or so later, he arrives at a party.

He's early, letting himself in with a spare key and, after the door is opened, hears enough sounds from the kitchen that he decides that's where he should move.

When he enters he's met by Isak, laughing at something Eva just said, before he catches sight of Even and his gaze turns soft. While their eyes meet, Eva excuses herself, brushing past him and into the hallway with a greeting hand to his arm.

They're alone.

"Hi," Isak says.

"Hi. I'm pretending I'm not late, can you help me?"

It looks like it takes a second for Isak to catch on, but then he grins before he rolls his eyes, too, like Even is being ridiculous. Even giggles at that, and in the end Isak plays along.

"How?" he asks, indulgingly.

"We fell into conversation?"

"Mm-hm. Didn't you ring the bell to get in?"

Because he knows exactly what comes next, Even grins. Isak, shifting to free up his arms, like he's getting ready to invite Even in closer, shakes his head but smiles, too.

"Spare key,” Even says, and it widens. He holds it up, too, for good measure, and Isak shakes his head again.

"Come here, " he says, softly, opening up his arms for Even to step into, angling up his chin for Even to kiss him. They’ve come full circle, now. 

Even steps closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some sweetness never hurts nobody, does it? and also some last conversations. i hope you enjoyed this! 
> 
> this was basically the fic i've been wanting to write ever since i started writing for skam, in that i really wanted to explore the isak/jonas relationship and the even/mikael relationship and the lasting effect of both even's and isak's, lets be real here, quite traumatic past. all of that lead to this
> 
> your enthusiasm for this story has been so nice, and your comments (often so long and detailed, thank you!!) have been so nice to read, and it's all made this very fun, so thanks for that
> 
> anyway. tell me what you thought about this chapter (or if you really like me, this whole story, or if you love me, both) in the comments! what's been your favorite part, is there anything you'll remember from it, all of that good stuff. i'd love to hear your thoughts one last time


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